trains in india can book up pretty easily, which makes sense when you think about it since there's like a billion people here and they all have to get from place to place somehow. and the popular routes with tourists, like mumbai to goa and banglalore to trivandrum and, yes, agra to varanasi, seem to be pretty popular with everyone, and so, reservations-wise, are especially rough going. about five days into this india trip i had to let go of any romantic notions about "just deciding" to go somewhere and "hopping on" a train that day or the next. this is technically possible, but practically mostly limited either to journeys by bus or by super-slow train (like one that takes 24 hours to go the same distance as one that takes 7 hours) or to those times when you're in a state of mind to be handling general seating, which is fine for short distances but on long and/or overnight trains, getting literally like shoehorned with 49 other folks into a compartment that seats 8 comfortably and maybe 20 creatively ... well, that's a little more personal challenge than i'd prefer to face unless actually necessary.
but, we are smart. like, really smart. we buy tickets at the railway station in mysore for an agra to varanasi train that we plan on taking about a month later. already it is fully booked. but i'm number 1 on the waitlist, tom is number 2, and i've got a pretty decent expectation of making it onto the train, because people do cancel and the waitlist moves, so i'm feeling confident.
flash-forward about 3.5 weeks, we're in agra, and we are still numbers 1 and 2 on the waitlist,* and all, like seriously all, trains from agra to either varanasi or nearby mughal serai are full. alternative arrangements must be made.
so i look on an indian rail map and there's this village called firozabad which is pretty close to agra, and we buy some tickets from firozabad to mughal serai. then we look at a different map and there's a place called tundla, the stop before firozabad, which is even closer to agra. and so we arrange for a car to drive us the 12k from agra to tundla, figuring that (1) tundla, pop. 12,000 or so, will be easier to navigate than firozabad, pop. at least 1 million and (2) the taxi to tundla is cheaper and (3) we'll just get a general admission ticket from tundla to firozabad, no problem.
9:45: we arrive at tundla station in plenty of time to catch the train, which is scheduled for 11:15, so everything is working great.
11:00: one of the porters happens to mention that said train is 7.5 hours late. everything starts to suck.
11:01: a bird poops on tom's leg.
11:15: tom texts indian railways and gets the helpful response that "this information is not available at this time." i scuttle around, attempting to confirm the rumor of extreme lateness. yes, the snacks-seller-wallah confirms that the extreme lateness is true. but there is another train, scheduled to arrive in a couple of hours, which is actually going to varanasi proper, so maybe we can get on that one.
12:00: i go to see the station manager, a sober-looking man in his fifties surrounded by about 10 cold-war-era telephones, some that function via some sort of winding mechanism, and explain our predicament; he tells me to see the tc (no clue, still, what this acronym stands for). the tc speaks no english, so i lead him down to the station manager and we have a multilingual powwow; the upshot is that, i should buy general admission tickets for the new varanasi train, and when it comes the tc will help find us seats in the sleeper section. a tiny, sari-clad woman by the station manager's left elbow winds a grey phone, he barks into the receiver for a couple of seconds, and tells me with a little half-smile that the new varanasi train is also late, so perhaps i can wait a few hours and he will tell me which train will arrive first?
12:45: we retire to a shady area with some seating. i can see, without really trying, about 30 million flies, all too hot and lazy to stir from the dry lakes of white-and-yellow pee-stained concrete. several folk are sleeping, with the full abandon of exhausted children, on benches; everyone not sleeping is staring at me, with a casual intensity that i am, by now, accustomed to. i realize that i am hungry. but my surroundings are a little too gross to allow eating.
12:53: we move to a different bench, also shady, this time further outside. i am sitting next to about a week's supply of uncooked papadum that apparently belong to a gaggle of turbaned men waiting on the other side of the platform.
1:45: i realize that we're sitting next to a foodstand/trash heap, and that's why there seem to be more flies on my legs than usual. slothrop accepts both the moniker "rocketman" and a dangerous assignment to recover some drugs from behind enemy lines.
2:00: i check with the station master re the status of the new varanasi train. he tells me to come back at 4:00. a sleek rat strolls out from underneath his chair, glances at me, and disappears underneath the office sideboard. "hey look," i say. "nice rat."
4:00: i return to the station master's office. a different man is in his place, one who has no knowledge of our predicament and actually seems to care less than his predecessor, which i did not think possible. there will be no help from the tc.
5:15: we are sitting on our bags on platform 2 and some other gringos show up -- fortunately for them, given the harrowing travel story they tell, they are buddhists. they ask when the train is coming? this is a funny question. in retrospect, it is also funny that i mentally referred to these guys as "gringos": they are mexican.
6:32: the train to varanasi clacks and groans into the station, and swarms of skinny men in shiny polyester button-downs and slim 1970's slacks swarm out to buy snacks, urinate on walls, and congregate in small, difficult-to-navigate-around clumps along the platform. because its an overnighter, we can't board this train unless we're assured of two sleeper berths -- well, we could board, but if there aren't two sleeper berths, then we'll end up sleeping on the floor in the hallway next to the toilet -- so i rush up and down the platform, trying to find the man in charge of the list.
6:35: i find him. he holds a clipboard and he speaks no english.
6:37: i find an anglophone passenger on the train, who talks to the list-man. he shakes his head regretfully.
6:50: another train, also bound for varanasi, pulls into the station. i am confused; no one has ever mentioned that this train exists. still, no matter: a different man holding a clipboard gives me the same answer, this time with no regret.
7:30: we have scored some of the comfier seats in the station: in a nice, airy section of platform 2, close to food and water vendors.
8:00: about a million birds show up -- hopefully to eat the mosquitos, who showed up a few minutes earlier -- and the cacophony is mind-alteringly loud.
8:04: a bird poops on my shoulder.
8:10: a bird poops on my leg.
8:33: a bird poops on my arm.
8:34: i move to sit on my backpack, positioning the pack under a section of the station that has no eaves, and, hopefully, no birds.
9:00: slothrop's dispersal is nearly complete. another group of gringos shows up and asks about trains. their train is scheduled to arrive at 9:30, but it is four hours late. one of the girls informs me that i have bird poop on me.
10:00: we do a photo shoot. i actually feel pretty good still. too bad you can't see the bird poop.
tom is, perhaps, doing a bit less well. he kind of looks ready for viking-style mayhem here, but trust me, he does not have the energy.
10:15-12:30: various tantalizing trains that are not ours pull into the station. there is hawking of spit from windows, the sweet tinkling sound of people pissing on the tracks from the on-board toilets. boys roam through the railpaths, scooping up plastic bottles and slipping them inside their tucked-in button-down shirts.
12:45: our train arrives.
12:47: a one-armed man is sleeping in my berth. feeling simultaneously guilty and entitled, i shake him awake, clamber into place, pull my birdpoop-encrusted scarf over my head, and drift, mercifully, to sleep ...
tundla, tundla, tundla ...
the station where i quite like to be
getting pooped on by pigeons
or just smelling the pee ...
[to the tune of "finland" by monty python]
*in case you're curious about one of the finer points of indian train-riding: the reason that we didn't move up on the waitlist is because we were on a different waitlist than the "normal one." if you buy rail tickets online, or at the station from which you'll be departing, you get on the regular waitlist (code: WL or GNWL). if you buy rail tickets from a different station that the one from which you'll be leaving, you get on the "remote location" waitlist (code: RLWL, although at least one of our tickets was coded GNWL but treated as RLWL). i don't know how the RLWL is processed but empirical evidence (n=2) suggests that it is processed after the GNWL. which is to say, not at all.
