Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

For those wondering, I’m not on another trip to India, I’m getting around to writing the stories I have from my first trip.

Trains

We took the train from Jaipur to Agra, First Class. What you have to understand is that in India First Class doesn’t mean what it does in the U.S., or Europe, or Japan, or South America, or Alpha Centauri. First Class in India means that you:

1) Don’t have to hang on the outside of the train
2) Have your own seat
3) Nobody’s sitting on top of you

A friend once described Indian train stations as a scene from a post apocalyptic movie, Mad Max does Mumbai. She’s not far off, every type of person was there. The standard chaos of India is somehow magnified in a train station. Jeez, I wonder what a riot looks like here?

There was a special waiting room for First Class, but it was so mobbed, dingy, and stuffy that I preferred to wait outside on the platform with the masses. If an Indian paid for First Class, he is damned well going to use all First Class privileges, no matter how revolting.

It’s hard to describe the train, I believe it was left over from the British when they left, and while it has been regularly cleaned, and I cannot say it was dirty, after six decades of use, the grime just becomes part of the train itself. Think of your car, the one you grew up in as a kid, the one you spilled your milkshake in, the one with cookie crumbs, the one you threw up in, the one you lost all those jelly beans in, the one you smoked dope in, the one you had sex in, seven decades later, after your kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids had done the same, and you get an idea of what I’m talking about.

I picture archeologists a century from now when the rail cars finally can no longer be used, going through them to discover how people lived in earlier decades.

“Look Alfred! I’ve dug down through 160 layers of stains on this seat. The first stain shows that the person was eating a yogurt with high quality fat. Thus we can conclude that in the 1940s the people ate better than they do today.”

“Another stain is mustard, thus obviously an American sat in this seat in the late 50’s, probably the child of an American Diplomat”.

The Indian railway system was created by the British, after all they invented the train. What!? The train was not an American invention? No dear reader, Americans didn’t invent everything, we just think we did.

So the railroads were built by the British, actually the Indians built it, the British did the planning, design, and direction, the Indians did all the work. In fact the British built railroads all over their Empire which are still in use today. They may or may not run on time, but they’re still there chugging along even in the hinterlands of Africa.

The Indians went directly from colonialism to Socialism in one fell swoop, the British controlled everything one day and the Indian government controlled it the next. The problem with Socialism isn’t that it doesn’t work, it’s that is does, for a while. The economy exists like a vampire off of the previous investment made by others. What happens is that things just slowly decay, and people get used to it. Unless the government can somehow channel investment correctly (which is rarely) things just grind down.

The Indian railway system has been on it’s last legs for fifty years now. Just enough is put back into it to keep it going, like an IV of barely pink blood, but somehow it still runs. Movies and documentaries marvel at the Indian train system. It’s kept the country together and somehow our train was even on time.

Many places in India have metal detectors, the Taj Mahal, the train stations, etc. But only in the airports do they take it seriously. Except for the airports you don’t have to take anything out of your pockets. You just walk through and beep, they don’t even notice. I presume if you have an AK-47 it will beep really loudly to wake them up.

At the train station I was waiting in line to go trough a metal detector, as this is India there really wasn’t a line, just a crowd. So people are going through and it’s finally my turn. Now you’ve seen metal detectors, they’re designed for one person at a time to go through. As a guard is watching me I’m always very careful to walk through them slowly and not make any sudden moves.

As I get into it, a guy tries to shove his way through sideways. That’s it. I’ve had it with Indian pushiness. I turn and yell at him, “Excuse me! Do you mind? There’s no reason to shove me”. He just stares at me like I’m some sort of nut case to object to his rudeness. I really hate being the ugly American, but Lord knows it works. An angry babbling American sets them back on their heels.

Planes

Air travel is not much more expensive, is much more efficient, and much faster. That’s why we caught a plane to Jaipur from Chandigarh. But Agra has no airport so we had to take a train. Of course just like the trains you feel like you’re taking your life in your hands on an Indian airline. The problem is it’s not your hands, it’s the Airlines hand’s.

Before boarding the plane there was an announcement for Kovi and I. The airline lady told us that we were on a small plane, about 40 seats, and in order to balance the weight in the plane they were going to put us in the back. She apologized profusely, telling us it was all just a precaution for safety. I was happy that they’d notice something like that. She issued us new tickets and we boarded the plane.

When we got to our seats I realized something was amiss. We were still in the same seats that were originally assigned to us in row three. Sure enough, the front of the plane was packed full, and it kind of petered out towards the back. I wondered how they packed the luggage. Was it stored up front below us? Would the plane pitch forward after takeoff?

I asked the stewardess about our seats being changed and she just told me there was ‘no problem’. Uh oh, when an Indian tells me ‘no problem’ I begin to worry.

After a few minutes I again called her over and insisted that our seats had been changed for safety reasons and she should check with the Captain. We were supposed to be seated in the back.

“There is no problem, sir. As you can see the back is full”.

I looked at the back of the plane and the last two rows were empty with about six people taking up the last eight rows total. The woman must be hallucinating, but there’s no point arguing with an Indian about reality. For centuries Indians have lived in a situation where they are forced to ignore reality in order to maintain their own sanity, they have this down pat. One alarmed American on a plane isn’t going to change their world.

Okay, don’t panic. Surely if this is really a safety concern the pilot will check. Nope, the pilot didn’t care enough to even open the cockpit and see if things were balanced. I figured the plane was large enough so it shouldn’t matter, the airline lady said it was just a precaution anyway. So I said a prayer, and had my hand on my seatbelt to bolt to the back if the plane so much as hiccupped.

We took off without a hitch, but I couldn’t help thinking that the ticket agent didn’t care enough to check if our seats had been reassigned correctly, the stewardess didn’t care, and the pilot didn’t care. It must be their first day on the job.

Automobiles

We had to drive from Agra to Delhi because we wanted to see Fatehpur Sikri about 15 miles west of Agra. Delhi is north. Fatehpur Sikri was where Akbar the Great moved the capital after some soothsayer’s prophecy. It’s like moving Washington D.C. to Harper’s Ferry, West Viriginia, it just doesn’t fit.

After touring Fatehpur Sikri, getting back to the main Agra to Delhi road was an adventure. Instead of taking the highway back to Agra and then north to Delhi, we were going to take a ‘shortcut’. I saw parts of India no Westerner has ever seen. The road literally petered out outside of a town after a few miles. In the town we forced our way through a crowed market only to realize the reason everybody was blocking the road was that everybody knows it goes nowhere so nobody drives that way. Not us. We were on a mission from God, to find the Delhi-Agra highway, or die trying.

Leaving the town it was obvious there once was a road here, probably built with some foreign aid in the ‘60s. A yellow line in the middle and a foot wide piece of asphalt it sits on is all that’s left. The middle yellow line sits up about a foot high above the dirt roadbed too as it protects the earth underneath it from the rain. Everything else has washed away. That yellow line of asphalt was our guide, we ourselves had to drive through a moonscape of craters. The moon buggy the Astronauts had would have served us well.

At one point it turned out we had doubled back and almost re-entered the town we had left. Yet our driver and guide would still not be persuaded to go back to the highway.

I was apoplectic. Kovi was angry with them as well. I envisioned a camel caravan discovering our desiccated bodies in the middle of the desert and thinking, ‘Another stupid tourist trying to take a shortcut’. As we were only driving 2 miles an hour at times I considered getting out and walking, at least I wouldn’t be smashed around the car like a salad shooter. Again I was getting to experience India as an Indian instead of a pampered tourist on an air conditioned bus. How I longed to be a tourist again.

We passed a truck carrying a family and asked directions. They assured us we were headed in the right direction. I was not assured. I wasn’t even sure we were going north we’d taken so many wrong turns. Amazingly, out of nowhere, after bouncing around for what seemed like forever, we did emerge on the Delhi-Agra highway. The shortcut only cost us two hours. Now all we had to face was the normal terrifying traffic on one of the most heavily traveled road in India.

Indians believe in karma, what goes around comes around, it’s kind of like fate, you can’t avoid it. Only an hour later when we got to that intersection and the motorcyclist hit us did it become obvious that the Gods had been toying with us and delaying us for a couple of hours so we could perfectly match that appointed meeting time. We were part of the motorcyclist’s karma, while we thought we were touring and traveling, we were really just there to dish out an ass whooping on that poor motorcyclist.

Shiva, the destroyer, strikes again.