Much to catch up on since it is already Tuesday, June 14, meaning I've been here a week and 2 days. I've got to hurry this up because I just popped a Malaria tablet and now I'm starting to feel a tad queasy. Where did I leave off? Ah, yes...Malwa Express 12920...
1) I stood at Platform 3 on one of the hottest evenings of my life in the chaos of the train station, with my backpack sagging heavily onto my shoulders, shades on to avoid stares, and balancing a Mango drink, a water bottle, a bag of small bananas, and my train printout without any of them touching the floor. Waiting in anticipation for Malwa Express 12920, I started asking a man who was also waiting for ME questions about how to find one's seat once on the train, if he was also in Sleeper 5, etc. While it's usually quite beneficial to ask strangers, especially locals, questions about what it is going on in a foreign country, it could also turn disastrous because of the potential for miscommunication. Read: I ask the man about when ME 12920 would be expected, after he declares matter-of-factly that it is already 15 minutes late. Indeed. Shortly thereafter, a train pulls through the station on our platform, and I assume (because he mutters something to me about this being the correct train) that this is, indeed, ME 12920. Meanwhile the digital sign above indicated that this was the correct platform to wait for ME. The only strange part about it is that the train seems to be passing on through rather quickly, and so I surge forward about to hop onto it...until the man rather alarmingly clarifies that said train is a LOCAL TRAIN, and NOT MalwaX. Pheww...glad I didn't get on that one. Don't know how I would've gotten out of that one, either. Let's just say that was the beginning of my train tribulations, because the rest of the story, although amusing, just goes to show how much the Indian heat can mess with an individual's mental state...::nervous laugh:: To confess, I listened to the man's advice once again to head to the Sleeper "WR" traincar as the ACTUAL Malwa Express pulls in, even though my ticket indicated that I was to board at the S5 section/traincar. I think he thought that because I was questioning about seating once inside the train, that I didn't actually have a reserved seat. Nonetheless, IN MY DISORIENTATION and willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt, I head toward the "WR" traincar...where there is a line of people in a frenzy, apparently trying to board the train and where I am promptly thrusted aside by a determined woman. Nevertheless, I successfully board the train and decide to hop onto the nearest upper sleeper...to escape the confusion as people are settling down and because...there was no seating chart as there was supposed to be! I sighed with discontentment and wondered if I would really be allowed to get off this easy in the upper berth, tucked away from all the chaos below...and surely enough, no...I was no longer in S5 section, I was 2 traincars away from it, and in actually, upon pulling out my ticket, the man had written my seat on it already: S5/9. Seat 9 in car 5...SIGH. I uproot myself from the upper berth, cross through 2 traincars loaded with people pushing this way and that, and finally find my seat. Except that there are two huge families here and there is a husband and wife already seated at seats 11 and 10 and their two kids are sitting at seat 9...
To be continued...because my head is really hurting right now! I wonder if due to the malaria tablet or the day-old "mixed" milk that I drank earlier.
