The Train

So we board the train, an AC 3 Tier sleeper. I was excited and anxious to see what this adventure would hold for us travelers (me, Mary Ellen, Fr. Paul and Cosmos, not the magazine, the electrician who speaks very little English).

We have 4 seats, 2 upper beds, a middle and an aisle. Cosmos takes the aisle and father takes the middle, which leaves 2 uppers. Right. I grab the right side and Mary Ellen takes the left. But we all sit on the first level.

So a sister we met in Barh, India comes and sits next to us which was an unexpected surprise. She was going back to Barh, which was on the way. A middle age couple and a daughter maybe 14, and some random business looking guy also sit down. The guy looked like the kinda person who is just rude, who I will reference as RM for rude man.

Father phone rings again and he says something in Hindi and laughs, hanging up. He tell me that news is spreading about this American hero who is eating 24 mango is one day. I naturally start laughing. He says Tim, I'm not joking there is a lady from American, who is doing a documentary (this is true, I was planning on meeting her later to see what research she had done on the Jesuits in India and their influence throughout India.). She called up several times today trying to get ahold of you to have a interview with you and shake your hand. I laughed again. This is great. Im in India for 6 weeks and im spreading through the religious community as a ‘American fruit eating hero’ awesome. Haha. I plan on meeting here asap before she finds out the truth about my feat.

The train is going on hour 1 and the lster of being a train has worn off for about 55 minutes now, so we pull out the deck cards and RM is yelling into his phone. This isn’t a very uncommon thing to experience. Many people talk on their phones in close proximity to other people without regard to others’ ears. We start playing cards with Fr. Paul. We played Gin Rummy and regular rummy for 3 hours. These games have lost all fun they once had they are now only used to pass the time.

I resort to looking out the window and it is really dark, Fr. Is on his phone, RM is on his phone and Mary Ellen is talking to sister about the customs of married men and women and their dress and shopping. We want to go shopping and understand some of what we are shopping for so we need some help from someone who speaks English. Since we live with only males they are not connecting in the female fashion department so we made the necessary phone swappings so we could meet next week.

At the this time, RM got really rude and started shouting at me. I don’t know if he was starting to smell me or the gas I was having from the morning hard boiled eggs, but he wasn’t happy. So I just stared at him, very innocently… it wasn’t me… the seat smells this way, I swear. He didn’t stop. Neither did I, but it was very quickly losing its humor. I looked at father and RM started yelling at father. So father said some stuff back and RM says Hello excuse me… Hindi…… ok dude, I cant understand you. I got the hello excuse me, but you said that 4 times already. One greeting is sufficient. You have bad hygiene and I do not think I want to be your friend. Please stop yelling at me. Father told me to move seats because I was in his seat, even though he refused to show us his ticket, also common in india is riding trains without tickets and not moving unless authorities came, which are few and far between. So I moved. That stopped the yelling. Who woulda thought…

We ate our dinner, in silence, which was chipatae, I think more eggs and some vegetables wrapped in tin foil. RM started shouting and pointing and using no English so I stood up and offered to switch seats, which only made him extend his legs, its 730pm, I guess its bed time…