Train travel is an essential part of Indian life, 14 million people travel by train everyday (and we thought Chinese trains were busy!). The Indian railway is the 2nd biggest employer in the world with an extensive network. So having struggled to actually book seats because of the huge demand we finally managed to bag ourselves 2 tickets from Varanasi through to Delhi – all 750km and 17 hours of it!! 2nd class too, almost luxury as we are not quite ready to brave the really cheap seats. Making your way through the station makes Kings Cross at 8:30 in the morning seem quiet. When the train pulled in what followed was madness – a huge serge of people charged for the basic carriages, before the doors had even opened they were forcing windows and climbing through to secure their seats! Families of 10 seemed to be able to occupy 2 seats as hundreds of people crammed into each compartment. Thankfully none of this goes on in 2nd class, it’s all very civilised and full of business men (who fall asleep and instantly snore), the new Indian middle class (all those call centre workers!) and a few grubby travellers.
Watching the countryside roll past out of the window was fascinating – this part of India is flat, very flat, the endless miles of dusty arid farmland is broken every now and then by small villages. Houses made up of straw, mud and brick, all in varying states of ruin (was half expecting to see some of the towns pigs wandering between houses being followed by a rather huffy wolf!) and patches of green where somehow stuff manages to grow (I’m guessing all of 3 months ago most of this was underwater during monsoon season). Villagers pick at the soil trying to harvest whatever they can, while kids (and goats) rumage through mountains of rubbish that litters everywhere! It looks a poor and impoverished life but they get on with it, smiling and waving as the trains rush past! Women dressed in colourful and amazing clean sarees walk the dirty streets with baskets of goods on their heads (or rubble as the ladies seem to be labourers on building sites!), boys dressed in rags play cricket in any gap of land not filled with rubbish. Young men wander the streets dressed like there is a ‘Saturday Night Fever’ party in town all in flares and funky shirts, men dressed in robes…well men seem to need the toilet a lot and the world is one big toilet. Water buffalo seem to be in every village (town and city come to mention it) grazing on litter and waste – as far as I can gather they are only there to poo! This can then be dried and used to burn for heating or cooking, well that plus it also appears that a buffalo can recycle plastic wrappers as there is definitely a lacking of grass on offer to eat!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.