The Writer is Out There.

Sorry for absence guys! laptop died, and then I disappeared on a family trip. Still, I’ve rediscovered the joys of wireless. Flickr hates me, so the pictures aren’t yet organised, but I’ll start to put the backlog up there. The least disturbing Mercy Home ones are going up 1st, but these will include the Finger-injury pictures… not advisable on full/ weak stomach.

More cheerful pictures next time I’m in town, to combat the  enormous update I’m still not quite ready to post, involving abuse, beurocracy, mountains of molehills, and the Lost Data.

Not that it’s ALL bad; there’s the carcass-ripping, enormous tiger story, and the Macaroni Cheese, and the hoopoe, the Megan Mansi show, and a whole bunch more.

 x

1^st Dec:

 

Leaving Bharatpur this morning, we passed a small group of people plastering large stickers all over a camel, mimicking the large painted sheet he towed which read ABC (abstinence, b————–, condoms: I didn’t catch what ‘b’ was, we sped past too quickly). I assume it was to do with AIDS awareness.

 

And this afternoon, I rediscovered The Life of Brian, just a snippet of it, and it reminded me of that first viewing. Well after bedtime for my young self, my uncle, on a visit from his
US home, snuck across to my room and suggested that we snuggle under a duvet in his massive bed to watch this Python masterpiece.

 

Sadly, we were discovered shortly after the opening title by my mother. Her protests probably had as much to do with the late hour as it did the questionable content (baring in mind that ours was a religious household, making the uncouth content that bit more taboo), still my uncle paused the movie and heatedly argued our case. He won. I remember sitting there, amazed that Mum had backed down, astounded by the power my uncle held. Somehow, watching The Life of Brian together cemented our relationship as one of inseparable equals. I was 9 years old.

For legal reasons, the person involved in the following incident shall remain unnamed. My unsung hero, however, smuggled a stash of the most precious substance found in
England across the waters. We dreamt of the stuff for a week.

 

2 blocks of cheddar cheese!

 

… you have never seen four people get so excited; you would not have gained such a response over solid gold, or class A drugs.

So, you’ve had a stressful morning?

 

The boss cornered you as you were leaving the office yesterday, and somehow you got roped into attending a meeting out of town on his behalf.

 

National Rail kept you on hold for 20 minutes – all you want is one lousy train departure time, and you get an overdose of Greensleeves so potent that you can barely muster the destination when you finally get to talk to someone. And then the person on the other end of the line – no doubt in a foreign calling office – can’t understand your accent. All in all, you’re not convinced of the information you acquire, so you feel obliged to arrive at the station early, just in case. But then the alarm didn’t go off, you set fire to the toast, and couldn’t find your keys.

 

You arrive at the station, late, and there’s a queue at the ticket booth. The lady in front of you doesn’t have her glasses, and gets in a terrible muddle over where, exactly, she’s supposed to be meeting her grandson.

 

Time ticks by, and you start to fidget. You try to imagine reclining on a palm-fringed beach, and utilise that breathing thing everyone recommends, but it doesn’t really do much for you.

 

Just as you’re about to blow, a tinny voice announces that your train’s delayed, anyway. Sorry for the inconvenience. Finally, you head the queue, and hand over money. It’s hardly worth the effort, since it will take a miracle to get you to that meeting. You’ll have to explain it to the boss. Again.

 

Muttering to yourself, you head for the Starbucks booth – if there’s going to be WW3 when you get to the office, you might as well enjoy your final moments with a caramel macchiato and a blueberry muffin.

 

The barrista forgets the cardboard ring which guards your fingers against the heat, and you only realise when you’ve walked away. Miserably, you perch at the edge of a bench so that you can rest it beside you until it cools a touch – by which time the syrup has begun to sink.

 

You dawdle across the platform to the news-stand and try to stretch out time by examining the headlines and magazine blurb closer than a sane person would. Finally, all glimpses of entertainment exhausted, you walk off with a paper, because the cashier kept throwing you dirty looks, and you were looking for rather a long time.

 

You’re beginning to settle into the waiting game, sunk into a sort of wretched calm, when unexpectedly, the same tinny voice tells you that your train is preparing to depart… from the other side of the station.

 

Legging it across bridges, you successfully avoid the porter with a stack of cases, and the toddler clutching half a soggy gingerbread as she teeters along. You leap onto the train, but your paper slips from your grasp and onto the rails, just as the train pulls away. Wheezing, you collapse into a seat. It couldn’t have been a worse start to the day.

 

Think again. You could have been catching a train in Madhya Pradesh!

 

There’s no off the cuff travel, for one thing.

 

You might have been warned that getting tickets is a complicated process, but you figure that the person imparting this advice is more accustomed to less stubborn travellers. You had a disagreement about westerners being too independent just the other night, and you assume he’s exaggerating. Besides, he charges Rs100 booking fee per ticket – a nice little sum if he can convince you,

 

Independent as you are, you’re not one to snub stress-free situations, so you try the internet booking service first, but it’s virtually impossible to find a train with empty seats, on any day, heading anywhere. You actually find one, but then the ‘book now’ link leads to nowhere.

 

Suitably riled up for all the frustrations of hawkers and bureaucracy in
India, you head for the train station, 10 days before the first of your intended journeys.

 

To get a ticket, you queue up at the enquiries/ booking desk. When you finally jostle your way to the front, you’re told “you are foreigner. You go to tourist office.”

 

Luckily, it’s in the same building and this time, visitors being such a rarity, there is no queue. Here, you fill out a 2-sided pink form for each reservation that you’d like to make. It’s time consuming, and vaguely intrusive, but it’s a simple enough process. Until you need details of the train’s name, number, or exact time of departure. Then you and your forms need to traipse back across the hall, onto the platform and the stationmaster’s office for permission to go – accompanied – back to the 1st desk, where the computers actually work, to get your information. Back at the tourist office, the clerk signs the bottom of your forms. Done? No.

 

Next, you head to a separate block – the reservations area. Queue 2, the VIP/ Foreigners line, is surprisingly long. You’re expecting the half-starved children who gather round you in the hope of a rupee or two, and the healthier looking mongrel sniffing around your feet for food. You expect the creepy gentlemen to elbow you a little harder than they do everyone else. You aren’t quite ready for the small, round woman behind you. As she sidles into her place in the queue, she rests a flat palm between your shoulder blades. As you shuffle forwards, she gradually edges her forearms against your back and leans heavily. No amount of twisting around and glaring, or polite coughs of ‘excuse me’ will dissuade her. You cram your hands into your pockets, in case it is some elaborate pickpocket scam, but, proximity aside, she seems harmless enough, and somehow, you’re reluctant to snap at her.

 

An hour later, you get to the front – people are still trying to shove you from your place, but they’re on either side and only cancel one another out.

 

The grizzly fellow at the desk speaks reasonable Engish, and despite another short delay – the ticket printer needs a fresh roll of paper – you think you’ve cracked it. You’re hot, tired and feel like braining something, but still, there’s a menacing sense of pride. Rs100 indeed!

 

“these train ok… this one does not go on this day. And this one it is not on the system, there is not such train.”

 

Damn.

 

“Well, is there another train I can get?” you venture. “I need to get from-”

 

“You can…go to tourist information”

 

“But you have a list of train times right there, can’t I just change it on the form?”

 

“Tourist information.”

 

“But…”

 

“There are people waiting… you will get code then come back.”

 

Here we go again.

 

The enquiries desk is less than pleased to see you. It turns out that if you have a comma in the wrong place, or if the scheduled times mismatch by as much as a minute on the two systems, the whole thing falls apart. You hastily scrawl amendments onto your forms, and head back to the reservations queue for round two.

 

The whole process takes you nigh on 4 hours, and by the end you’ve successfully purchased 3/5 tickets.

 

Still not willing to part with Rs200, or your pride, you head back a few days later to get the remaining 2. But the power’s out and they cannot give you train numbers. You wait around for an hour or so, but eventually, you swallow your pride and ask your advisor to take care of it, swearing you’ll never complain about National Rail again.  It’s the best Rs200 you’ve ever spent.

 

When the day comes to catch your train, your rickshaw gets stuck behind a stubborn bullock, and by the time it’s owner’s persuaded it to budge, you’re late. Still, you’re hardly stressed about it. These things happen, and it’s not as though the train will be on time. You hang around on the main platform, unsure whether it’s the right one for your train. You perch on top of your bag, and watch the rats scurry across the line, in mild amusement. A woman on crutches struggles down from the platform with 4 heavy sacks and drags herself and the first bag across the line, painstakingly slow. You help her heave the sacks up on the other side. Nobody even notices, much less offers help.You would get down there and do more. You keep thinking you should, but you can’t quite shake the thought that a train could rip you instantly in two. When she’s safely on the platform with all her belongings, she asks you for money.

Bored, you wander over to a little book stall; the only English-language material is a business-morals guide, entitled ‘no mountain too high’.  So you stop at a samosa cart, hardly caring that the frying plate is as filthy as the rails beside you – even if they looked clean the birds and rodents would have trawled all over them. 

You consider it a blessing when your train is only 50 minutes late, and only one person wants to share your seat.

Sun12th: There were several articles in the Sunday Times which interested me; a lengthly, gory-detailed piece on witch hunts; upon which I must base a story. The fact that it’s Children’s Day on Tuesday (a piece on child labour, starvation and education prospects as well as the celebration). And a short piece stating that despite protests, the domestic violence act will not be altered, because women are in danger and it must be stopped.