The Overnight Train

October 24th 10:30 pm. Gunakal Train Station.

We are on an overnight train from Bangalore to Hyderabad. This train marks the end of our vacation, although as is always the case in India the journey is a big part of the adventure. We have just pulled into Gunakal Station. This station is nicer than most. It is well lit, there are chairs, trash bins, and tidy tea stalls. It is also bustling with activity at this time of night. I watch anonomously, unnoticed from the hidden comfort of my 2nd class air conditioned sleeper berth, cloaked by tinted glass. Eli sleeps beside me, Evan and Pat sleep above, and Erin, like me, lies on her stomach, rivoted, watching this spectacle of constant motion happening just beyond the glass.

I see saree clad women with bare feet carry bulky jute bags on their heads. Bands of moustachioed men rush to the next train. Three intrepid souls sleep on the platform floor. A pair of young girls wearing long skirts and jasmine in their hair giggle into their hands. A smartly dressed man with a club foot hobbles by. A muslim man sits watching. A preganant woman waddles to a chair to sit. A young man hurrys by carrying an equally young one-legged man on his back. Mysterious women in burkas pass by. An old man in dirt-caked clothing shuffles by wearing shoes of different sizes.

The train leaves the station and heads back into the blackness of the countryside. When I look up this time I only see my own reflection half lit by my tiny bedside lamp. I become aware once again of how different I look. How strange I must seem from the outside looking in. India is a mysterious place - so different, so foreign. I am captivated by the ceaseless activity, the unbounded energy. I relish these expireneces - seeing India at it's most human. No pretense, no pride, no shame. No flute hawkers, no foreigner's price, no touts. Only people living, waiting and boarding trains.