The Bhuj Express

Leave it to Indians to show me how to take what we would consider a bad experience and turn it into a wonderful moment.

After a hunt for the right platform and a long, extremely hot and muggy wait for the train, we got on the Bhuj Express, a sleeper train from Borivali (Maharastra) to Bhuj (Kutch). I have used sleeper trains before where we were 6 per compartment, but this was a whole new experience and I am now certain that Indians arranged the living compartments in submarines. We sat 6 in an area the size of a queen size bed and an additional two were seated separately over by the other window. These two seats were separated by a tiny aisle from the two benches that seated us six. There are no separate compartments separating us from the rest of the car (coach), only the tiny wall the birches are hanging from. I should have known that all the difficulties with my ticket would follow me.

When we booked our tickets, Hanna’s ticket was confirmed right away, but mine was kind of confirmed. Hetal kept reassuring me that everything would be fine, I just didn’t have a confirmation for a seat yet, but I would be allowed on the train. Somehow, 16 hours without a seat did not really appeal to me, but I trusted her. The day before we left, I received an email telling me that I too had a seat. Phew.

After boarding, I still did not know where my seat was and had to wait for the conductor to come by with his long computer print-out of who sits where. Some of the people sitting on the benches must have felt sorry for this old seat-less lady and offered to share their seat with me and thus also be squished.

Finally the conductor came and showed me my seat, a few “compartments” down. The gentleman next to me offered to move down there so Hanna and I could still be close to each other. I now sat in between two people and my, for Indian standards, too long legs nearly touch the other seat across from me. I followed their example and sat crisscross.

I could see the beautiful landscape outside the window evolve from grey Bombay to lush, gorgeous valleys, wide, winding rivers, steep green mountains and plenty of rice fields. One gorgeous scenery after the other passed by my eyes but I could not take much of any pictures because of my seating arrangement. This useless feeling of self pity that had gradually crept in would soon leave me when the wonderful people in the “compartment” showed me how to focus right.

Not long after we had left, the lady across from me and the one to my left started talking to me. Initially, it was just chit chat but soon we were all six talking, using the best English we could find and gestures. They shared with me their wonderful food and every time the train stopped, one of them would jump out, get some of the local delicacies and bring some back to share. I assured them that I had brought sandwiches, and offered to share them, but they kindly declined ( :-) ) and laughed and said I could eat those tomorrow. It was phenomenal.

I was first treated to a snack called Foul Vadi. If I understood them right, it made of ground graham flour with spices and then deep fried in oil. Scrumpious! We then proceeded with Khakra, a chapatti like cracker. No idea what all was done to it, but delicious. Another gentleman then offered me something called Chathiya. No idea what it was but I greatly enjoyed the kindness and sweetness of these complete strangers who showed me how to focus on the right things.
We took a short break from the culinary experience and chatted about family, the internship, the regions we would be seeing and so many other things. Wasn’t long before the next food item emerged and I was treated to Vada Pav, which reminded me much of the Bombay Burger I had eaten on the day we visited the Weaver’s Center. It is some kind of mixture with potato and spices and chutney on a bun. After that came Thepla (chapattis with massala), coconut chutney with spices and Idle (steamed rice patties). At the end of this feast of home-made delicacies, I had some kind of sweet I never even got the name for. Then came out the peanuts which apparently are a specialty for the area we were driving through at that point. They were indeed wonderful!

During all this time, we laughed and shared and all the focus of the train, ticket, and seating arrangement just disappeared. Indians focus on relationship and interactions with others, not the cage.

They helped me get my birch ready and I headed in for the night. Now, you need not many math skills to figure out that if I am 5’11” and the birch is not an inch more than 5’5”, there is a substantial part of me sticking out into the tiny isle. I chose this part to be my feet and all night long, every time someone had to walk by, I was woken up by someone hitting my feet. However, many times it was the gentleman who earlier had sat across from Hanna and he always stopped, looked at me and then smiled. Not sure if he was laughing at my feet but I decided to take as just being nice.

I learned that night not only several new words in Hindi, but also how to turn nothing into something priceless. There may not be a lot of space, privacy or luxury in the lives of most Indians, but there is a lot of kindness and they are not afraid to share it.