From the Train

My favorite place to be on the train is at the doorway. There’s an unspoken etiquette that those getting off at the next station stand at one doorway and those who are riding for longer stand at the opposite one. I learned this rule the hard way, by being crushed against the dividing pole during one of my first times on the train. Now, regardless of whether the train is empty or full, I like to make my way to the open doorway, my hand grasping the pole, my feet inches from empty space. I like feeling the breeze on my face, and watching the tracks fly beneath my feet, all but a blur of motion.

The early mornings are my favorites – the rice fields with its young growth mysterious under the cover of mist, the blood red sun with its rays diffused to a gentle halo. The lakes are peaceful mirrors, reflecting here a steel bridge, and there a boy by its water’s edge. Under the soft light, the lush greenery of the countryside takes on a Monet-like quality – serene and dreamy.

At a stop, a man stepped on, a large bamboo basket balanced on his head. I see him almost everyday, and he smiled as he set the basket at the empty space near where I stood. The scent of guava permeated through the air, distinctive and tantalizing. I watched him skillfully slice the top off, quarter the green fruit in his hand, before smearing the inside with black salt and handing it to a customer. Not to be outdone, the banana seller by the other doorway makes his way through the aisle, holding out bunches of the yellow crescents.

The train is filling with women as they surged on in a pushing, gregarious mass. Brightly colored silks and cottons swirled about, the pallo of saris intermingling with the dupatta of salwar kameez. The red bindi and streak of vermillion in the parts of their hair marked the married women, while jeans and western tops graced the bodies of younger girls. Everywhere I look, jewels and sequence glittered, gold jewelry flashed, and bangles shimmered. It was a cacophony of sound as the rattle of the train harmonized the chattering voices of women as they greeted friends or shouted at someone taking up too much space. A woman caught my eye and pointed to an empty seat across from her in the nearly full train: “bosho”- sit. I shook my head and smiled, turning to lean my head out the door. I could guess her thought – “Silly foreigner, standing when there are seats to be had”.

All along the tracks are houses, shacks rather. Some made of bricks, other a woven plant material. A fleeting glance as the train raced by showed me a single room interior, dark walls and floor. A man and woman sat on the ground, playing with a young child. Outside these shacks, clothes hung drying in the sun, the bright fabrics flapping in the wind. It was almost like art – these swatches of color against the dullness of the hut, set against the vivid green of the trees. Men and boys walk amongst the tracks, dressed only in lungis, and when they caught sight of me, some called out “Hello Madame!”.

Some time later, under the noonday sun, men and women of the slums bathe in the lakes. the women still wearing their saris, the men stripped to the waist. Boys swam in the same water as buffalos, and women wrung out their long hair a stone’s throw away from heaps of garbage.

The train slowed at my station, and I stepped off into the crowd, my mind still dazzled by the sights I see everyday but that never fail to amaze me.

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