Читать книгу India Journal - Mark McGinnis - Страница 5

pigs behind my favorite eating place in Bodhgaya

I start getting myself ready to go at 5:00 a.m. to be at the airport very early for my 8:00 a.m.` flight to Patna. I get a taxi and set a price with him before we go - the only way to use taxis in India I have figured out. At the airport I find that the flight has been delayed because of fog in Dehli which we have to pass.

While waiting I discover that none of my flights on Indian Airlines for my entire trip are in their computers. I have no reservations at all for flights I have already paid for. I find one helpful clerk who enters them in the computer for me — I hope. The Patna flight finally departs at 9:30 a.m. It is then delayed in landing by even more fog. All the airports in India are packed with army personnel. Security checks are everywhere due to the hijacking and threats of more.

In Patna I need a taxi to the train station where I plan to catch a train to Gaya and then a taxi to Bodh Gaya, already altering my well planned itinerary. It is a free-for-all of taxi drivers trying nab me. I set a good price and off I go. The driver tries to talk me into having him take me directly to Bodh Gaya in the taxi for 2,000 rupees, about $47.00. He then goes down to 1,200 rupees. I refuse. He is driving like a madman and the taxi doesn’t sound like it could make it that distance.

He drops me at the train station. It doesn’t look like it could be functioning. It appears to be in a state of decay that has seen no attention for the past 50 years. But there are people, thousands and thousands of people. I get a porter and go to get a ticket. There are no lines to get tickets just a solid mass of humanity surging and pushing until one surfaces by a window. The porter tells me where I need to go and I do it. I finally get to a window and make it known where I’m going and I ask for a first-class ticket; there are none left. I have to go to another window to get a second-class ticket, so the struggle starts all over, but I finally succeed. Next I must find out what platform the train departs from. A huge area has to be walked across and I go up flights of stairs before I find the platform and departure time. The porter takes me there. It is about a half a mile from the station on the lowest level. I have not seen another Westerner in the station yet. On this particular platform I would guess a Westerner has never been seen before. I am a freak. Some people seem curious, some shocked, some hostile.

The environment is almost beyond description. The many tracks that run around us are nearly covered with trash. People are urinating and defecating out in the open on all sides of the tracks. The place smells like a sewer and worse. Cows and dogs are all over, both half-wild scavengers. What was to be a one-hour wait turns into four hours. I sit on my big black duffel bag and try not to seem frightened, which for the most part I am not.

Finally the train arrives. It is unbelievable. People are hanging out the doors, they are stuffed in the car and somehow more manage to stuff themselves on. There is no way my bag and I will fit anywhere. Some kind soul tells me that the train on the other side of the tracks is also going to Gaya in a while and it’s an express train. I thank him and decide to take my chances on it. I find a car and get on it. It is strange with benches rather that seats. I figure it must be a cheap car and I have a cheap ticket so I’ll give it a try.

I sit on the train for two hours before it slowly starts to fill. I discover that this is a sleeper car. The benches are actually the beds and more fold down from the wall. I figure the car can’t be full and I can get an extra seat. But I was wrong, not only is the car full but each “bed” is assigned by number to a passenger. I end up sitting on a tiny conductor stool by the door and balancing my big bag in front of the door. When the conductor finally comes. I plead with him to let me stay. He is reluctant and I don’t think has any English and finally shrugs his shoulders and walks away. I am relieved. The car is full of a strange variety of men, some army, some laborers, some lower-class businessmen. They all seem equally hostile to me. I definitely get the feeling that Westerners don’t belong here. The train finally gets going and it is pitch black out. The men all settle into their beds. I look back into the car and one man seems to be sitting on the edge of his bed masturbating. I do not prolong my gaze to find out. I shift my view to the front of car where the toilets are, basically two reeking holes in the bottom of the train. This “express” train seems to stop about every five minutes. Everyone is bedded down when the train stops and out of the blackness our car is attacked. What seems to be dozens of men are beating on the car, beating very hard. There are bars on the windows and we have the doors bolted. The attack goes on and on. I am terrified. I look around to see how the rest of the passengers are reacting. They looked terrified as well and that does not comfort me. My thoughts, and maybe theirs as well, goes back to the stories and films I have seen about Hindus attacking trains of Muslims and Muslims attacking trains of Hindus and slaughtering the passengers during the time of the Pakistan partition. I push my bag against the door for more reinforcement and finally the train begins to move again and the attack stops. Everyone on the car goes back to sleep. It is dark and the windows are so filthy that I can’t see out. All train station markings that are lit are in Hindi. There is no way for me to know where my stop is. I am sick that I will miss Gaya and spend the entire night on this dreadful train. After a while a man gets up to go to the toilet. On his way back he says to me, “The next stop is Gaya.” What a relief. I get off and follow others who have detrained to find the depot. The station looks like one of the lower regions of Hell. Literally thousands of people are laying on the floors sleeping under rags. I remember my horror at the homeless in the subways of New York in the late 1980’s. The scene in front of me now is vastly worse, so many families, so many children.

It is about 1:00 a.m. and I know I can’t get to Bodh Gaya tonight. No travel is advised at night in the Indian state of Bihar where I am now. I look in my travel book for a hotel close to the train station and find one directly across the street that is given a good recommendation. I drag my stuff over and deal with desk people who are even more rude and indifferent than the last hotel. I get a room and pull my bags in. The travel book is wrong. It is the dirtiest room I have ever seen. I try not to let any of my things come in contact with any of the surfaces, but I am exhausted and can’t face the street again tonight. I settle in a bit and lay on top of the blanket using my meditation cushion as a pillow. It is incredibly loud. The room directly across the hall is playing a boom box full blast with Hindi pop music. Am I going to go tell them to turn it off? I think not. I try ear plugs but it really doesn’t matter I still can’t sleep – four sleepless nights in a row now.