Friday, April 18, 2008

Happy Journey!

Oh, where to begin...

This morning, at 5:45 am, I quietly crawled out of my mosquito net cot and walked until I found a rickshaw for hire.

I didn't want to wake up my roommate, the other volunteer here at Ashraya, since this was not my first early morning trip to the railway station. In fact, it was my fifth.

Four other times I'd been to the crowded home for beggars that functions, from time to time, as a place to trick yourself into thinking you might get on a train.

At 6:15 I walked up to counter 30, which is kindly reserved for the special-needs population of India (being the handicapped, senior citizens, women and foreigners). "Great," I thought. "There's no one here. I'm first in line," which is exactly where the angry ticket salesman hinted, oh so delicately with his spittle-soaked-shouts, I should be. Thank God/Allah/Ganesh/Emory or whichever is the proper deity of obstacles for providing me with that glass window. I'd have to be number one to get my ticket to Dehra Dun.

Then a short, squat, oddjobish looking fellow taps me on the shoulder and says something I don't understand. "Tatkal?" he asks, "uh huh," I reply, "you are number eight." I turn to see the seven people that have been waiting since before 6:15 for the window to open at 8:00. I'd underestimated the mad rush for tickets too many times before, but I had to resign myself to my eighth-place fate. For nearly two hours I elbowed and was elbowed, shoved and got shoved, prayed and was prayed for to get this little scrap of paper, but I finally got it. Even the sweet lady who was number nine and praying for my trip got her ticket. It was a good morning.

Now that I have my ticket, I feel like I should frame the thing instead of using it.

Instead of a $250 plane trip to Bagdogra, or a less-civilized bus ride, I'll be riding the 36 hours to the northeast of India in sleeper-class style for the price of 613 Rs, roughly $15. I bought a couple more books today (The Argumentative Indian and Krishnamurti's Commentaries on Living Vol III).

The plan now is to bus to Mumbai on Monday, mess around there for a couple days and take my train on the 23 to Dehra Dun. From there I'll take a bus to Sikkim and look into a bit of trekking for a week or two. After that I'll work my way back west by way of Varinasi, Delhi, Maybe Rishikesh and Agra for the Taj Mahal. Then back south to Mumbai to fly home to the Atl.

I can't wait for my happy journey to start.

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