Here is my update #4 since last week...
For clarification, I successfully landed a seat on Malwa Express and settled in for a long evening and morning/afternoon on July 7th. Remind me to elaborate on the first leg of the train journey, where I basically shared a compartment with 3 separate families traveling together to Bhopal. I observed them this whole time and they were polite but very much a busy, large family trying to keep their kids together and laughing and chatting with each other while I looked on, intermittently sticking my nose out the window where the breeze flew in from the Indian countryside. Overnight was "OK" because at least I slept (the first time in a day or two, give or take), although it was on the lowest bunk and I didn't bring a sheet with me. So I improvised, wiping with my CVS hand sanitizer packs and using my dry-fast towel for my head. Oh boy was it a long journey though, without the WATER bottle I had left in the WRONG upper berth (2 cars away) and the bananas purchased for me by Jihyun :( Oh what sadness it was...however...here is the rest of the story (please note the "rupee story" that will be told in years to come!)
Train ride continues during the early morning
hours; noisy but affable families leave at Bhopal stadium & I have new
companions with another 6 hours (ended up almost 7) hours left until I would arrive at Indore BN Train Station. I
was not prepared to be awake for those daytime hours...not prepared for Malwa
Express non-AC, sleeper class. No water, left behind the previous night in the
flurry of confusion & Indians boarding. Simply one bottle of a Coca-Cola
brand mango drink mixed with some water the "big" family shared with
me. And no food. Did not want to leave my seat, which was not even my original
S5/9; and paid the price for my self-consciousness and vigilance to my
belongings.
By the time I muster up
courage to purchase a "garam chai" (hot masala tea) for 5 Rps, I pay
the opportunistic chai-seller 100 Rps (indeed, enough for 20 chais) PLUS 5 rupees, in my complete disorientation and eagerness to get the money out of my inconveniently-shaped, under-the-clothing passport slip-bag...note I DID NOT realize that I had taken out both denominations (I must've wrapped the 5 rps with a 100 rps bill) and avoid
eye contact with the ubiquitous drink/food sellers that pass by our aisle from then on.
But at last! A friendly new family with post-college daughter in Software Engineering and
mother who shares their sliced cucumber with me (my new compartment neighbors starting from Bhopal station), maybe taking the hint of my
water-deprived existence and thus taking pity on a poor, clueless and
disoriented traveler. At an obscure stop 2 young Indian men sit down in our
section. I finally work up the audacity to ask them if they are students in
full-blown English and in doing so settling the speculation in Hindi that I
am..."Japani"...
More miserable immobility until, unbelievably and
amazingly, INDORE. Outside the station immediately confronted by another
sleazer, to which I was unwilling to bear any longer after the experience in
Paharanj..."NO, JA-LO!" picked up my belongings, and marched away to
the other end of the exit/entrance. First autorickshaw experience (Indian
traffic is notorious for a reason, and Indore's even more unplanned and lawless
than Delhi's), a bit of confusion (where is 180 Bhamori), and I FINALLY arrive
at the Institute...
