I write a short piece each quarter for a wonderful little bilingual paper in Sutton, Quebec called Le Tour (www.letoursutton.com). Le Tour promotes tourism in Sutton, Dunham and Frelighsburg by giving tourists the flavor of local writing, as well as advertisements, schedules and notices. Denis Boulanger, the editor, sets out a concept for each edition, an idea to unify the issue and a guide for contributors’ submissions. The 2008 Summer edition, appearing mid May, explores the theme Éloge à la lenteur / In Praise of Slowness.
This is my submission to that issue. It was written here in Kolkata. It is about the train journey I took to get here and how Sutton figured in my thinking. I publish it this here with the permission of Le Tour, all rights reserved. I hope you like it.
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From Bombay to Sutton on the Samarsata Express
The taxi drove me to Lokmanya Tilik Station in north Mumbai. It was rush hour, so I had departed early. My train was not until 8:35 pm but the streets were deadly crowded. The traffic heading north out of the Mahalaxmi district of Bombay (the old name) was hectic, frenetic, and downright dangerous. Drivers honked and cursed each other in Marathi and Hindi. Pedestrians shot through chockablock cars at traffic lights, and taxis lunged at gaps that opened and closed in only a second. The world seemed nothing but noise, heat and dust, and I winced at every near miss. It does you no good to worry; what would you do instead, get out?
At the station, the floor was filled with waiting families. Queues snaked toward grimy windows like tangled hair stuck to a balloon in static-charged air. People crowded around assignment boards to find their car and berth, and mosquitoes swarmed mercury-vapor lights high above, near the ineffectual fans.
I was traveling 3A, meaning three tiers of berths (eight to a compartment) in an open air-conditioned car. I had gotten my ticket last minute through the friend of a friend who worked at a travel agency. And though I’d been assured that I was confirmed, my ticket actually carried a wait-list designation, so I was anxious. I jostled in a queue hoping to get my assignment from a man at a computer and was relieved to see him unhesitatingly write the words B2/20 on my ticket. I was indeed going to Calcutta, or Kolkata as they have called it since 2001. On platform 2, near the back of the train, a scuffle for the unassigned sleeper cars had brought out the police nightsticks; not everyone would be getting on. I met someone on the platform who would be an occasional companion on the journey, but I got into car B2 as soon as I could to beat the rush for lockable luggage space.
And then it was quiet. I was on, in my seat, with a ticket that affirmed my place in the world, at least for the next 36 hours. Others were still arriving, but I was settling into my peace. I could have flown; that is surely faster. But I like the train, and I like it because it is slow, not despite its slowness. I like the motion, the swaying, the soporific vibration of the wheels on the tracks, the click-click of the track joinings. There is an enforced relaxation on a train; lights out is the only thing for which to prepare. With a head-lamp, you can even take some control of that. But trains are really about letting go of control. You will get there only when enough miles have been traversed and not before.
The landscape changes at human speed. You see the dry, sand colors of the west gradually give way to the rich green of active rice paddies in the east. It’s like time-lapse photography, not the slide show of just two slides flying gives you.
There is time on the train. There is time for reading, thinking, looking at the landscape, listening to music, and for making acquaintances. It is open-ended time, or at least that’s how it feels. It is guilt-free leisure, the kind we should all take more of but hardly ever do.
So I read from three different books, napped, did the Sudoku each morning in The Hindustan Times, and met a woman who will make my journey easier when I reach Guwahati in Assam next week. And I thought. One of the things I thought was what a wonderful place Sutton will be to come home to someday, whether sooner or later. It is like a soft safety net you carry in your mind that helps you get through the difficult times, times like just last night when I arrived in here to Kolkata, 10 hours late, 1300 miles and 46 hours behind me, at the height of rush hour, and without a room. It was truly overwhelming. I felt well out of my depth. But as I stood there on the steps to Howrah Station looking down at the multitude of gesturing taxi drivers with whom I would soon be haggling, I took a deep breath and quietly filtered this thought through my consciousness: If things get too much for me…at any time…I have only to hop a flight back to Sutton. It’s a thought as valuable as the $50 you carry in your shoe when in NY City, only more so. You can’t get a train to Sutton, but you can find for yourself a little peaceful slowness, either by being there, or just thinking about being there. Give it a try.
Jay Sames
jay.sames@gmail.com
Sent from Sudder Street in Kolkata, West Begal, India
