crises averted - things could have been worse

So the thing with riding the rails in India is that it feels nearly impossible for newcomers to figure out. And yet it is THE way to travel. First of all, a great deal of the trips are overnight which seems crazy to a tourist. In West Africa, I remember it being totally out of the question for foreigners to travel at night. The sinking sun was a dangerous thing. But it is not so here. Initially, we were taking one of he cheapest train classes, the Sleeper car. Which has no air-conditioning and has three tiers of bunk beds. Picture precisely what the lower class cabins of the Titanic would have looked like. It is pretty interesting that the train cars are so definitively divided on class lines. The people that ride this class look at us like we are crazy for not choosing the more expensive AC cars, because they know damn well we can afford it. That is part of our trouble here in India - trying to convince people that we aren’t filthy rich. Although I am trying to travel modestly, I have to be honest that when I first got on the Sleeper car my New York mind shouted “AW HELL NAH!!” But it is wonderfully curious how things become good enough for you if you just let go of your standards for a minute. Its not so bad sleeping in a sweaty car with garbage on the ground and Indian men taking your photo with their mobiles while you sleep. Totally cool man.

Getting on a train to a major city is not a question of buying a ticket the day of and just finding a seat in a comfortable air-conditioned car. Noooo. You have to go several days (or weeks) in advance and reserve your ticket in order to confirm that you have a seat on the train. Given that this is the busy season for Indians to be traveling - and they sure do travel around their own country - spontaneous movement has been ruled out! We come from a pretty hyper-structured society, so we are more than willing to comply with rules, but as with many systems in India, the rules seem to be largely over-ruled. We had to switch around train tickets to get ourselves up north where is isn’t so damn hot which had us switching train cars at 5am. Jumping off the train with just a few minutes to transfer I decided to meet Mel on the car so I could so buy water. Bad idea.

I will excuse myself by saying that I was still half asleep but before I knew it, the train was blowing its horn and I was jumping onto a car, not sure if it was ours or not. I could also blame the Indian man who told me it was the right car instead of admitting that he didn’t understand my question in English. Regardless, I jumped on while the train was pulling away and immediately realized that I was WRONG in doing so. Tourist panic set over me like damn unstoppable monsoon and I start screaming Mels name out the car door. I can’t even imagine what the Indians must have thought this wild white woman was doing!

Mel called me, equally frantic, yelling, “Where are you?! I’m still on the platform looking for you!!” I start freaking out running through the train cars, looking for the conductor thinking that he could possibly stop the train for me or something. I mean, I was ready to throw myself and all my luggage out of the moving train. This thought truly did cross my mind. This moment of separation was, of course, by far more dramatic than it should have been. Yes I was on a train headed to Delhi and she was in a town that would be 6 hours away. But we could have figured it our! The fact that I had a complete meltdown about it was just embarrassing. Luckily, this one compassionate Indian man took my case up to the conductor who gave me advice on how to reconnect that I should get off at the next stop, take a taxi back, yada, yada.

Ultimately, I think this panic was a blessing in disguise for many reasons. The man that helped me was so incredibly kind and I think that I had to be reminded that this kindness does exist. Not everyone in this country is some kind of swindler. It is filled with good and bad people and I am lucky to have those good people there to help me out. Further, getting on in India seems to be all about shock treatment. Only when you are screwed over, left behind, laughed at, stared at over and over do you learn to just move past it and have a good time. After this near disaster, we got into a minor car accident in an auto-rickshaw in Delhi and you know what? We didn’t even care! We just laughed about our luck and the stupidity of the driver. Sometimes disaster can be positive and can make you more audacious. The next train we took, we even decided to forget about the waitlist we were on and just got on the train as stowaways, knowing that we would somehow