Picture 2: The Train

It is 8pm and I'm perched on my bag at the New Delhi Train Station. The platform is crowded and there are group of Indian guys strutting up and down, whitewhashed cargo bellbottomed denim jeans and T-shirts that don't make any snse, such as "Enjoyment" or "Absolute Permission" Unfortunatly I'm still thinking about terroist attacks, something I had never thought about before while travelling. Wondering what It would be like to die alone on this train platform. What would be the last things I hear? Or see? I resolve that because I am thinking about it, I will somehow have the forethought to die peacefully. I shake my head and realize I'm having serious culture shock. In the dark I can make out large brown things moving on the tracks, lotsof them. They are rats, my perch becomes stiffer. Usually I can laugh at myself, not tonight, oh well.

The train arrives and the hundreds of people on the platform rush the doors, some are not even open and something resembling a bottleneck, without the bottle occurs. Knowing I will never get my seat if I don't partake in the craziness I join the insanity and we all crowd on to the tain, all 100 of us, at the same time. Some are carrying large metal chests, some are carrying round plastic containers that are the size of a man torso, "Durga Cement" stamped on them. I can't even guess what's inside. A living room set? I make it to my seat, in a whirlwind of humanity, but no luck, there are already a record-setting 10 people ocupying the space for six, I make 11. There is no room to put my bag down, there is no room to turn around, there is no room to move. Those with claustrophobia take note. A fight breaks out between two people carrying trunks. Yelling, screaming, the trunks fall onto those nearby. An old woman get involed and I begin to worry. This is when things can go really wrong, some sort of anger induced something or other where people end up hurt, or worse. I wish only to gone from this situation, so I smile and crack a joke to myself, to keep for loosing it. I try desperatly to find my breath, my practice, all I have learned about imperance and compassion, but It feels more like a "hell realm." Eventually I leave my "seat" to find the contuctor, I haven't slept much in the last 30 hrs, and I NEED a place to sleep. No luck, after a few hrs the conductor gives me a very final and very curt wave in the other direction. Back to my old seat. Eventually I find another man in uniform who tells some ladies occupying my seat to all share one. I find out they don't have confirmed tickets, but apparently this is not a problem. The more the merrier. Eventually we make it to Varanasi, ony 4 hrs behind our original arrival time. Oward to the Monastery.