Gods and Trains

A few weeks ago I said to one of my friends that I didn’t think that there was anything I could see in India any more that would truly shock me. I’m so used to seeing surprising things that to me the out of the ordinary is now ordinary. I still recognize that seeing a ram sitting in an alleyway in the middle of Delhi is odd; but yet not really shocking. Well on Thursday night I was fully shocked by something at the train station. My friend and I got to the station and after grabbing a quick dinner (McDonalds I’m sorry to admit – made it over a year and a half without it but at the station it seemed like the safest choice; I had a McChicken ‘burger’) we began searching for our track. We found the track easily enough and that was when it happened. On the train tracks…literally on the tracks…I saw 3 men sitting with their back towards me. I saw some light and just assumed they were doing some work. Then I looked a bit closer. They were praying. They had set up a little shrine with a small statue of one of the gods with candles and incense and flowers; the whole deal; and they were praying. On the tracks!
My friend and I were completely shocked; I mean I’ve seen some odd things here but that one took me completely by surprise. I wanted to take a photo but after coming to my senses I realized that we were standing in a rather questionable crowd and it was not the time to dig around for my camera.
I do think that the track that they were on wasn’t in use because we were in the station for a while and I didn’t see any trains coming on it but still…you never know!
Kind of nice to know that after this long India can still take me by surprise.
Anyway…Jodhpur was great. I can’t quite figure where to start so I’ll do a quick re-cap of the night train experience and then tomorrow will actually get to Jodhpur.
On the night trains there are several different classes; there is 1st class where there are very few beds; only 12 on our train; then 2nd class, then sleeper class and then un-reserved. We did 2nd on the way there and 1st on the way back. Unreserved is just what it sounds like, every man for himself…as the trains pulled in people jumped up onto the trains as they were still moving to try and get the best seat. I would never ride that…ever. Sleeper was reserved but looked like seats, not beds. 1st was equivalent to European night trains in that there were 3 compartments with doors and 4 beds per compartment. Bigger beds than European night trains though; pretty comfortable. 2nd class was nice enough, sort of like 1st but with no compartments or doors, just curtains. Hard to explain (and taking pictures on a train is hard because it moves to much) but basically there are the 4 beds; 2 lower and 2 upper. A 'hallway' goes down the car and on the other side of the ‘hallway’ 2 more beds, one upper and lower up against the window. Seemed a bit cramped when I walked in but it actually was fine…except that I’m a bit too tall for India and my feet hung off the bed and kept getting whacked by people…eventually I just curled up.
All in all Indian night trains are good and I would take one again (if I had the time). Kind of like any night train really in that the experience is more about the people around you (1 snorer on the way there but not too loud) than anything else. Funny thing; when we got on in Delhi we asked the attendant boy what time the train gets into Jodhpur. His answer was – to me – so very Indian. He said that it is scheduled to arrive at 7:30 but usually arrives between 8:30 and 9. We got there at 9 a.m.
Aside - changed my picture on the main page again. The bougainvillea were crazy in bloom in Jodhpur so that is a bunch of a few of them. Kind of fuzzy on my screen...let me know how it looks on yours.