Thisconnect

Rocking movement,  dim lights, warm nourishment, an uncommon selfless camaraderie. There is a reason why traveling on a long distance train in India affects the soul in fundamental ways. 

Firstly, there is the time disconnect. There you are, moving at an even pace across fields, villages, towns and rivers. After a while you get so used to the sights that space detaches itself from the continuum and time is left to fend for itself - and hence loses all meaning. Morning turns to evening when you least expect it. You might see the setting sun and for the first time in your life be awed by it’s magnificence and yet not be affected by the transience of life. Then again, you might not see the setting sun - since you’re up on your berth slipping in and out of sleep as you read that book in your hands; It doesn’t really matter what book it is, since in this alternate universe, even the most inane of texts will coax you into a state of helpless intoxication and sleep.

Sleep. Unhindered, unadulterated sleep. And lots of it. Without any sort of guilt to dampen the experience or the need for alarms to remind you about some pressing errand that needs your attention. Anything that requires attention will be attended to, by others. Or not. It doesn’t really matter. Two days of sleeping will clearly have an effect on your sense of reality. You will do things that you normally wouldn’t. Like wake up bleary eyed at an impossible hour amid sounds that please and yet pull at your nerves - and drink a cup of hot, sweet, milky tea. You’d think the sugar in the tea would keep you awake for hours, but no - just as you saunter back into the carriage from the platform as the train pulls away from the town (with such a beautiful name, you think) and see your fellow passengers in various poses of extreme repose, your mind delights at the possibility of climbing back into your berth and stretching out - as though at the end of a long hard day of work in the fields; like those that are beginning to make an appearance at the windows on the outskirts of the town - detaching space from time again. Until the next meal begins to make its appearance.

After the slight flutter created by the stoppage at the station, things settle back to the usual pace and everybody gets some much needed rest. Yes. Rest. After a while though, some stomachs start to rumble and as though on cue, the catering crew starts transporting food from the pantry car to the bogies. It’s a hard job to do - navigating the reckless vestibule while balancing 20 trays of eminently spill-able food with hardly any rest is no mean task. But the waiter will be bullied. After hours of having nothing to do, a growing hunger and limited communication with fellow travelers, a simple complaint about the missing bowl of curd ends up sounding like a raging fit - probably the stickiness of the vocal chords after prolonged periods without speech have something to do with it - And every attempt will be made to extract maximum empathy from anyone who will provide it. A minor foible by the normally fawning waiter is made to look like a cause for harsh and continuing rebuke. Of course, since the same waiter will serve you your coffee in the morning, you want to keep him in good cheer, so after the meal you make it a point to pat him on the back and maybe even slip him a tip - sometimes just a smile will do.

Space detaches itself from time, but it does still exist - as a bogie. A bogie is a chunk of space, carved out of the surrounding hard metal to keep the harsh weather, and even reality of the outside world, at bay. It is a mobile sanctuary. When you are in it, it is as though you are in a capsule destined for another galaxy, accompanied only by the ones in your bogie. The disconnect from the outside world breeds a benign sense of friendliness. Strangely, the space inside an airplane is more disconnected from the outside, but it breeds contempt. I think the irregular rocking motion of the Indian train is what makes it so appealing. An Aluminum box floating in the sky and fooling your mind into thinking that it’s not moving is just not as comfortable as a noisy steel carriage clattering on steel tracks and bouncing irregularly. Sorry Boeing. 

Perhaps the rocking helps with the digestion too - because there is no other activity that could explain the regular and timely visits to the train loo - which is yet another marvel. The loo orifice is not a static entity unlike your loo at home. On an Indian train, you let go and nature sweeps away all that you wish to discard - in a flash. And there you are perching on your pedestal, far from the mess. It is as though there is an unseen hand that is interested in your staying clean. That the loo could become soiled with abuse only makes continued access to the orifice even more precious. Unparalleled then is the sheer lightness that the spirit indulges in while performing what in the outside world is nothing more than a mundane chore - a chore like countless others that vaporize gently into a comfortable mist when on a train. 

Normal everyday tasks need to be done differently on a moving train in India, if at all. Like the calisthenics of feeding oneself on a train . The runny Sambar and the colorful Biryani cannot really be attacked with the spoon provided for the purpose - the neck of the plastic spoon being too weak to bear the load that the bowl is capable of shoveling up. So, you need to use your hands. Which means you need to first locate a safe haven for your plate of food, head to the wash basin to wash your hands, wading through a sea of humanity in various phases of hand washing and eating, return via the same sea to access your plate - which by now might have been jerked around prompting it to spill some of the food or even drop an egg on your neighbor’s shoe - place it on your berth, climb up after it, crouch into the shape of the bogie’s roof and enjoy your meal in exquisite privacy. Once you’re done, you of course need to repeat the actions in reverse order - literally getting down from your berth in reverse - and end with patting the waiter on his back.

Such habit alterations reset reality and remove the connection between experience and expectation. Rather than think about what you will do after your meal, you just enjoy your meal in splendid innocence. 

A series of such everyday activities, elevated to a realm of pure experience can take you to only one place.

The same place you get to with the timeless-ness, the copious sleep, the license to complain freely and loudly with no long lasting bitterness, the easy and innocent friendships, the guilt-free calorie filled midnight snacks, the rocking, the rhythmic sounds - Your infancy.

Delhi - City of Intrigue

I think the cycle rickshaws in Delhi say a lot about the city and its culture. It is an expensive (costing about INR 15k) vehicle with no shock absorbers, is difficult to get on and off, offers no protection from the elements, leased and driven recklessly by starving migrants who have no traffic sense, on badly made roads, locking horns dangerously with buses at crowded intersections and operated by cartels. The hardened citizens of Delhi consume
aloo chat and hold lively conversations while perched high on these contraptions, even as they race down the main roads and dangerously overtake slow moving trucks and buses.

And these rickshaws are not some legacy from a time of bad design. They are being manufactured even as you read this. Based on the same brain dead design.

I've tried hard to understand the basic traits that go into making Delhi what it is. And Delhi is important for India because pretty much every decision that affects the country is made here.

One universal fact that every thinking resident of Delhi will acknowledge is the one-upmanship that underpins everything that happens in this city. Even in the most minor of human interactions. You need to buy a ticket at a metro station and join the queue behind the one guy who's already there. While you wait, some person will appear from the side, seemingly ignoring you completely with the intention of creating his own personalized queue. You make polite attempts to make your presence felt. When that fails, as it undoubtedly will, you make more physical attempts, by waving your arms in front of his face so he sees you. When that too does not yield the desired results, you tap him on his shoulder and raise your eyebrows. He will continue to persist in his bubble. He will raise his eyebrows back at you in accusation. You point your thumb behind you and raise your voice. Guess what? He'll smile back at you and meekly form teh queue behind you. Yes. He will not fight back, but try to act friendly, now that you displayed anger in some fashion. This just blows my mind. The apparent bravado and non-cooperation in the face of logic melting into submissiveness and insecurity in the face of legitimate resistance.

The funny thing is that this is not restricted to random people in crowds. I have found most interactions with Delhi-ites streaked with this trait. Even funnier is the fact that migrants to this city, who are self aware, are conscious of this and are yet forced to play by these rules if they are to get anything done in the city.

Court intrigue

I'd even say that this is Delhi's dominant cultural trait. The fact that recent migrants to this city quickly adapt to the environment (or leave) and contribute to the strengthening of the trait makes me think about tipping points and runaway trains. But more interestingly, it makes me wonder about where it might all be coming from. Delhi has been the seat of power for 100s if not 1000s of years. Could all this posturing and capitulation be a vestige of age old intrigues in courts and palaces?

Retention of power requires innumerable machinations and Delhi has witnessed countless such dealings between all manner of rulers and mercenaries. India's two greatest epics are centered around court intrigue. Closer to reality, look at the 'easy' example of Aurangzeb. He imprisoned his father so he himself could be emperor. The result is simple enough but the execution of the plan must have been filled with intrigue - with lies and subterfuge and counter conspiracies. Shah Jahan must have put up a fight but lost eventually. The thread that runs through this is one of posturing, threat, negotiation and capitulation for one and victory for the other.

The British did pretty much the same thing. They postured, threatened, negotiated and capitulated. Yes, this is universal to any fight for survival, but few places in the world repeatedly witness such events over prolonged periods of time. Repeated enough to become a habit. I suspect that such court intrigues came to define the people who ran and were governed by the court. When the city develops a habit it permeates everything that it does.

To build a house you need a certain set of things to happen; a certain set of people to come together and co-operate. When each of these people plays out a version of the court intrigue of domination and capitulation, the work to be done becomes incidental. The owner tries to cheat the builder who tries to cheat the contractor who tries to cheat the labourer who cheats him back. The end result is something that resembles a house but is not really one. The common thought that binds all of them together though, is bravado - the feeling that they can screw the other guy and get away with it. For capitulation and correction to occur someone needs to actually be right. If everyone is screwing everyone else, nobody retains the moral right to accuse the other. And bravado rules.

Spitting paan on a board that prohibits it or on every stairwell corner in sight is bravado. Throwing garbage on metro rail tracks even as there is an announcement of it being a punishable offence is bravado. Supplying adulterated medicines is bravado.

Just as individuals are unable to build proper houses for themselves, the same trait percolates into anything they do. Be it business or charity or even religion. Contracts are not even worth the paper they are scribbled on and the right connections can make you look like a saint in the eyes of the court. Charity is a mask for cleaning dirty money. Temples in Delhi are the dirtiest of places, with homeless kids defecating next to it while their families wait for fat cats to distribute oil soaked food in the name of charity, even as the middle class ignores the absolute squalor and loses itself in prayer.

Given the way people take care of their own affairs in Delhi, it is no shocker that public infrastructure is dismal. The people who involve themselves in creating public infrastructure in Delhi are in fact, idealists. They would like to maintain the purity of intrigue and aim for the ideal situation where they can raise invoices and be paid without doing an iota of work. Now, that would be something to boast about. 60000 crore rupees being spent on the Commonwealth Games-2010 with very little to show for it at the end is bravado.

Defining India's dominant traits

Every major decision that affects India originates in Delhi. Every person who visits Delhi to take part in some 'nation building' exercise will be infused with the Delhi trait, for without it, he will not be the one who is left standing. He carries it back to his part of the country and creates an island of intrigue which also happens to be prosperous. Prosperity attracts suitors and the island grows. Accountability does not work in anybody's favor since doing things for the public good can never be as profitable as personal gain.

Without the moral fibre to balance greedy consumption, Delhi has lead India into societal diarrhea.

Percentages

As the 99% moon stood over Vijayawada, the Rayalguda passenger train noiselessly slid into platform #2. There were no lights on. A few nervous souls hurried into the first compartment even before the train came to a complete stop. They got off just as hurriedly and rushed toward the back of the train. Seeing them, the entire crowd of people on the platform, 99% of whom were tonsured, rose as one and scattered towards the front and back of the train, where one usually finds the unreserved compartments. There was still no noise in spite of the speed and energy with which the crowd tried to find the best seating and sleeping places. They ran, one or two members of each group running faster than the rest of the group, but maintained body to body contact to a minimum. They didn't seem happy or sad. Very neutral, like coconut palms. Most of them would reach their homes late into the night after 2 or 3 a.m.

A eunuch got onto my train. She wore a purple sari. She stopped when she saw me and stretched out her palm. I fished out 2 rupees and placed it there. She took a 5 rupee note from her stash of 5s, 10s and 50s and offered me that and the 2 rupees I had given. Apparently she felt insulted. I wondered why she was exempt from joining the industrial revolution. Perhaps because she wasn't classifiable 100%.
The moon continued to shine down brilliantly as my train left the station.

Vijayawada

Tvlesion

The Television looked dusty and weather worn, like It had lived in a mud house among aluminum utensils, firewood stoves, cloth cradles and desperation; providing the only window into a world that appeared to offer a vision that something better existed elsewhere for someone and perhaps one day for the inhabitants of the mud house too. If those visions were real, there might have been hope.
By the TV stood various household equipment that humans collect by any means. Flat brown mattresses rolled up like beedis, parts of chairs tied up with string and rope, anonymous jute bags and Chinese fertilizer sacks made of viscose hiding unabandonable items whose worth could only be understood by the one who labored hard to procure them through debt or savings to fill a seemingly urgent need sometime in the past, but were pure baggage which had to be lugged around now. Can't get rid of them, no use in keeping them; dead weight covered in dust.
A woman sat on the railway platform guarding this sordid debris of the industrial revolution. She wore clean clothes and looked proud; whether of herself or her belongings or her having been able at some point to procure these things it wasn't clear. Not nearly as clear as her eyes.
As the train slowly eased its way out of Ongole's only railway station the heat hit like a sickle, sharp and shining.
As I continued to stand at the door to the compartment, fields of what might once have been fertile land passed by in various stages of drying up under the heat of the unrelenting Andhra sun. The sky was a mixture of blue and grey; a sickly industrial sort of globalised air. But for that TV there might have been just a little bit more of blue and the proud woman might have done something a little more fulfilling than watching unreal images of unattainable glamour and avarice.
A group of young and well fed youth stood behind me chatting in a foreign tongue. They looked proud too. They perhaps did not wait until their TVs gathered dust or their mattresses became flat; they bought a new one every 6 months. One of them finished a Coca-Cola® and threw the empty plastic bottle into the wash basin with what seemed like contempt.
The proud woman lugs her television around to guide her in raising her child so that he may one day buy numerous television sets and throw empty coke bottles into public wash basins with contempt.
What an enlightened age we live in, when the petty goals of the decadent are forced down the throats of the poor and sincere.
They have nowhere to run. Even when they run, they carry their Televisions with them.

09-June-2009 - Bangalore to Guwahati (Ongole)

How urgent is it, anyway?

"He tiptoes in. He's wearing shoes, and yet he tiptoes in; fearing the unknown, like all of us."

There is no record of anyone having entered a toilet on an Indian railways train by just opening the door and stepping in. There is an un-tutored and subliminal dance that unfolds before the entry can be effected.

He stood as far as possible from the toilet door in question, but without getting too close to the door opposite; using the tip of his most infrequently used digit he nudged the door slightly without looking anywhere in particular and expecting the worst. There were visions; unsettling visions of anarchy and bowels gone wild. And hopelessness; for he had been delaying the inevitable until this last moment in the faithless hope that it was all a dream or really nasty nightmare at worst. But he had to go and here he was.

The inevitable had brought him running to the door with less than a minute to spare for reconnaissance, ground clearance and the rest that usually follows.
With the gentle suggestion to the door, to open, he impulsively drew back an inch, bracing, and without an ounce of irritation or disgust. His eyes wandered around the small room, trying not to spot anything untoward. His attempt was not to survey the place and pass judgment, but to identify redeeming factors, like the fact that the window glass exists and is clouded or that there is an exhaust fan, spinning or not. Having spotted the merits and ascertained the unsuitability of the room for the rather urgent purpose, he rushes with vigor and a pained expression; actual physical pain coupled with the mental agony of knowing that he does not possess soap, to the next candidate loo.

Nobody or nothing is perfect. It's all about relative merit. And time is running out. Having eventually settled on the most suitable location that he dares to even enter, he starts stepping in. not in one sweeping motion, but one toe at a time. Yes, he's wearing thick soled shoes, but he tiptoes in. At this point, freely flowing liquid signifies cleanliness. He tries to avoid the obviously solid particles, stepping only in the friendly wet zones, skipping now and then to avoid moving solid waste that is swirled around with the movement of the train. The goal is the raised pedestal. Once he gets up there, he knows, he's safe. By the time he gets both feet firmly pressed on the foot seats, he's almost in tears; and he's still standing, fully clothed.

He slowly prepares for the launch. It's actually quite fast but to him it feels as though time has stopped. His bowels by now have raised their hands in despair , releasing all manner of waste in torrents. Lucky him. Mere mortals would first need to position themselves comfortably before their bowels will consent to anything; in which case one needs something to hold on to, as the train hurtles down the tracks, cutting across lush green fields soaked in fresh clean rain water, peppered with milk white migratory birds that wait patiently by rivulets for that errant leaping fish; they sometimes wait for half a day before moving on to another location. Yes, there are designated handles. The trick though is to squat while holding your clothes above the water level and catch that designated handle with the tips of at most 2 fingers; you wouldn’t want to risk more. All this as the train swings in all directions and the bowels have consented and the business of the day has begun. How did he do it then, if it's all so difficult and troublesome. It's a bit like judo. He used the train rather than oppose it. He goes with the swing, a melodious union of sorts; not some monotonous latin pop hit, but more a nuanced and uptempo jazz jam.

The foreign scents and sights have been overpowered now. All the cares are forgotten; it's almost unreal. I mean, there still is a world out there, but It's beginning to feel like home now. Bliss. At a level one can never hope to achieve in the cleanest toilet under the most pleasant of bowel circumstances.

When he realizes that he's sucked the bliss dry and the flow has stopped, he's brought back to earth and the train with the toilet with it's occupant in it. It's getting dry and he needs to get on with his life. He has to face facts, gather his resolve and… turn around. The tap faces the other way and points vertically down. A somewhat inconvenient location. While the self closing tap and he are in the same room, the relative position and distance between them renders it impossible for him to use the tap in any useful way. He could, for example open the tap and watch the water flow down and ponder the melting glaciers in Greenland. Or he could navigate himself to the tap and just sit there for he would be too close to operate it. Agility, speed and dexterity again come to his rescue. He swings his right hand behind him and uses the strong triceps to keep the tap open. Meanwhile his left hand approaches the falling water from beneath, and when a left-handful of water has collected, he swiftly transports it to the work site. He repeats this process as required until the job is done or the triceps freeze or the water runs out.

Getting up now is easy. He feels lighter and younger.

Having no soap at hand, he stands his palms below the self closing tap, alternating hands every few seconds and when the obvious odors have been washed away he opens the latch and steps out triumphantly. No tiptoeing now.

Wait. There's a guy selling paper soap strips passing by. There couldn’t be a happier ending.

Just after writing this I went and did what had to be done… it wasn’t as bad. And the soap guy passed by before I went into the loo.

09-June-2009 - Bangalore to Guwahati (somewhere before ongole)

A Capital mess

You see the powered window slide down; darkened with a promise of shelter from the searing heat that prevents you from opening your eyes fully.
You see a plastic mug drop out of the window, splattering the froth from a just consumed cup of cold coffee.
You get a glimpse of the girl who made the careless drop. She's laughing.
You see the window slide up again.
You see the car speed away, leaving behind yet another vestige of mindless consumption.


As you walk along a pavement, you try to ignore the puddles of spit and other bodily fluids that assault your senses.
You are able to ignore the fluids only because there are other things to assault your senses to greater degrees.
And then you find yourself being pushed violently from behind.
You might think there was a dire emergency and people were trying to make a getaway.
But no; it is just a fat kid who wants to force his way down the path of mindless consumption
And he will not brook your easy paced walking.


You dart through the traffic to make it to the other side because the traffic lights no not work.
As you press your survival instincts a gush of dust sweeps onto your face and fills your open mouth.
You spit your way through the traffic and survive.
Having made it to the semi clean environment of the metro station, you breathe.
But the train has to stop and you have to get out. Back into the dust and spit.


Platform #16 has been dug up. Fine dust is suspended in the air. a weather worn blue train slides onto the platform. dust re-distribution in full play.
New Delhi railway station has a single counter to sell platform tickets and about 10 ticket inspectors to check if people have valid platform tickets.
The queue is not serpentine. It more river-like; with a large delta near the counter. Morons like me are to be found in a bend in the river,
standing the risk of being cut off in an ox bow lake.


The theory goes that terrorists do not attack as often because their supply lines are cut off by "intelligence".
If this theory holds, it must mean that India is brimming with intellect.
An alternate and more plausible theory is that terror requires the presence of order, and order is scarce in India.


I elect a representative, I pay tax so he gets a salary.
He gets a nicely laid out road and a car to drive on it. I get what?