The Train to Goa

Somehow, we knew the train was going to be a thing. It sat forebodingly in our afternoon, and we woke with trepidation. Booking had been difficult enough, with an elaborate process of submitting passport copies, verifying email addresses, borrowing an Indian mobile number to obtain a login password. Once the two days worth of steps were completed, we logged online only to be told there were no trains available despite our desired travel day being two months out. 

"Sleeper" sounded right to me, but the price was too cheap, even for a cheapskate such as myself. 

"Is sleeper what I want?"

"No!" my friend Asim vehemently texted. "Those are chaotic public benches!" I giggled at the idea and told Christina, 'chaotic public benches' forevermore being a part of our vernacular; it can easily be found alongside 'shitshow' and 'clusterfuck' in our thesaurus. Finally, after days of fruitless searching, I called a travel agent and had them book the tickets. 

"These are two of four seats left on the only train that day!" I was skeptical. Could it really be that every possible seat was taken on a route that offered four trains a day? Perhaps India was as busy as they say. 

"I want to get there early," I tell Christina, the foreboding now heavier as the hour approached. God knows what we'd find - trains leaving late, trains leaving early, maybe a brawl for a seat or a car that doesn't actually exist. My East African mind imagined sharing a sliver of a broken down chair with a smelly man singing Jesus songs while holding chickens. Despite tickets that read "AC 2nd tier" I told Christina not to get her hopes up, and to plan for hell. 

"Great, now we've got an hour to wait," she said, once we'd stepped out of our tuk tuk and found our train (and our car) waiting right in front of our noses. Christina, as it turns out, does not handle heat well. 

"Ha ha ha! You picked the worst time to come to India!" laughed a man waiting with us. "Even we can't stand it!" his beaming smile attempting to cancel out Christina's glare. I was in two minds. 85% of the time the heat did not bother me. Sure, I sweated through my shirts, I didn't smell my finest, and the mop on my head was, well, really a mop. But my bones loved the humidity and as long as I kept moving and didn't dwell on it, I was happy. The other 15% of the time came quite unexpectedly and suddenly. "I'm going to be sick," I'd say to anyone nearby, instantly feeling like I was going to vomit and shit and die all at once. The wave of nausea would hit so intensely and for five or ten minutes I'd be telling Christina my last wishes and hoping Jacob knew I loved him. Just as suddenly, it would pass and I'd be bopping around again, loving the Indian chaos. 

Antsy, I walked the length of the track several times, checking out the fellow travelers, the ladies waiting room (smelled like piss), the first class waiting room (smelled like piss), and the food court (smelled like curry). I bought a bottle of water and a samosa and an ice cream cone which I licked on my third go round before giving the rest to Christina who sat patiently under the ceiling fan. 

Once on board, the accommodations were perfectly fine. Not too comfortable, not too uncomfortable. Our seats were at different ends of the car and Christina moved to the chair across from me until someone else came. "How strict do you think they are with the seating?" she asked, but I just shrugged. The novelty is going to wear off real quick, I thought, as we chugged through the first fifteen minutes. Wes Anderson films are the most stylized films you've seen, I thought to myself, didn't you realize the train was stylized too? I accepted this was no Darjeeling Limited, but also felt in my spine that this journey was not yet over - it had all been too easy thus far. 

"Where are you going?" asked a dapper gentlemen in a white suit after nearly an hour. 

"Margao," I said. 

"For Margao this train might go. We will take a deviation because of another broken train ahead. So in Shoranu Junction we will see."

"What?" Pause. "This train isn't going to Goa?"

"No, we cannot know. Maybe in Shoranu Junction we will know." He really did have a wonderful smile. 

"But if it doesn't reach to Goa how will we go?"

"There might be another train there you can take. But maybe seats. Maybe no seats. I can give you no assurance." A silence overcame. "There you will reach a tougher problem," he said, laughing now. 

"Where is the nearest airport?" Christina chimed in. He laughed and shook his head. 

"Airport is not possible. First to Shoranu then you know. Maybe you take your own means of transportation. The full refund of your ticket will be given." A small crowed had now gathered around the lovely train conductor. His words were sour but his delivery so sweet; everyone enjoyed getting in on the conversation. A father of three (who sat on an upper bunk playing Uno and looking down at the unfortunate situation) loomed over Christina. A man with a scrunched up face uttered words hardly intelligible behind me. Across the aisle, a fellow Goan traveler had a look of panic as he realized we were all in the same boat. 

"So, worst case scenario," he kept saying to the conductor, who only stood there shaking his head. "Worst case scenario, we are in Shoranu with no train for how long?" he would ask. 

"I cannot know. That's not my train. I can only tell you to see information at Shoranu Junction and they will give refund. There is train to Goa 30 minutes later."

"So we'll be able to get seats?" I pleaded. 

"No, no, I cannot know. Only then will you know. Listen, you follow this man. He will help." And with one last burst of sunshine from his glowing face he left the cabin. 

"CAROLINE," I heard behind me. I stopped, feeling the waves of people pushing by. "You can go ahead I just need to know where you're going!" she said. I didn't know where I was going, though, only that there was some place I needed to be. I motioned and rushed through the throngs to get toward the top of the line where information booth representatives were being pummeled for answers; everyone shouting, jostling, train names and times flying overhead like birds stuck in a warehouse. It wasn't interesting; we were told to go here, and there, and back to here, now over there. Eventually we realized three things: we were not getting a refund, the next train to Goa left in 13 minutes, and there were no seats available. But, one could buy a general boarding ticket and look for a spot. 

And so the chaotic public benches hit us full on in the mouth. 5 hours in to a 14 hour journey, could it be that we would need to ride the rest of the way standing in the humid hell, no access to...anything really. We bought the tickets and glumly raced to the track. Multitudes of travelers stood on that track - the usual gaggle from the popular route, and all those waylaid by the deviation. 

Indian trains are long. Abnormally, unusually, drastically long. Earlier I had pressed my face against the glass (oh how ungrateful I had been for that slow but steady stream of AC in the 2nd tier!) as the train went around a bend - I couldn't see the end in either direction. Perhaps thirty cars, perhaps more, perhaps less, I have idea - only that it is astounding when one is faced with a train and its track spanning hundreds of yards in either direction. 

The blue steamer pulled up four minutes late, the 'Sleeper' cars passing us first. I stood there as the faces looked out, their hands wrapped around the barred windows, inside it was packed with people on the benches and more standing in between the rows. Completely miserable. I looked squarely at Christina. 

"I can't do this."

"Neither can I." And we solemnly accepted each other's weaknesses.

"GO!" I yelled, and we started to rush down the track to the higher classes. 

"Some Australian dude said we could try to get on in 2nd tier and stay as long as we can til they push us to general. Maybe there's empty seats..." Christina had said earlier as we waited in the refund (no refund) line. It seemed like our best bet. 

We sped against the grain, searching for AC 2nd tier car. I didn't see any. Sleeper sleeper sleeper sleeper sleeper...you remember how long the trains are. Finally, some words that brought hope - First AC. 

"Just get on," I said, flinging my weight in toward the open car. "Oh shit..." I trailed off, walking down the private corridor. Had I found Mr. Anderson's imagined train car?

The first door on my right, Cabin 4, was open and unoccupied. I sat on the plush maroon day bed/bench.  The room was cool. It was large. It had four beds (two upper, two lower), two fans, mirrors, and a lovely old poster of a train going through the snow. "First Route 1927" it read. First route to where, we cannot be sure. A phone charger was left plugged into the wall, and a half drunk bottle of water on the table. 

"I don't think we can stay here," she said. I knew that, but lord I didn't want to move. Not now, not ever. 

"Let's just see what happens," I said, leaning back into the comfortable seat. I was energized by the luck of finding the empty cabin, and the criminality of stealing it. 

But as Christina put her earphones on and leaned against the window, I could not relax. With every footstep in the corridor, my heart pounded with the knowledge we'd soon be thrown off the train, or worse, thrust into the cattle cars. The door opened. A young man leaned in and looked at us skeptically. This was it. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit fuck. He entered the cabin. Christina and I straightened. 

"Chrageah?" he asked. 

"Excuse me?" said Christina. 

"Charger?" he repeated, pointing to the charger in the wall. 

"Oh, of course," I said, unplugging and handing to him, watching as he closed the door behind him. We stared at each other and tried to relax again. I couldn't do it. It wasn't in me to relax. I'd always been mocked in my family for waking up alert, chided by my boyfriend for not being able to loosen my tense body. I envied Christina, who sat there, watching the Kerala countryside go by. I massaged my neck and shoulders, assuaging any fear. But still no peace came. Another man did, though. 

Again, we straightened and put our game face on. Again, he peered in, looked at us as if we didn't belong, and then stood quietly in the room for a minute as we all stared at one another, waiting to see who would speak first. Finally,

"Your dinner order madam?" he said. Don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh I thought as Christina tried to keep it together on her side. 

"Of course. Veg biryani please," I asked. "And Christina will have the veg curry with chappati," I finished.

"Great, 7:30 dinner," he said as he left. 

After that, we rode the train peacefully for another four hours, though I didn't so much as adjust the pillow on the bench. It seemed wrong to be stealing a first class cabin and to be comfortable at the same time. I sat up straight, staring out the window, the hair on my arms standing up at every noise in the corridor. We sailed through Kolzhikode and Mangalore and a handful of local stops, and still no one entered our sanctuary. We wouldn't reach Goa until 4am, but by midnight, I had acquiesced to putting my earphones on, with the lowest possible audible volume (so I could still hear the door).

"Ticket, ticket, give me ticket!" His belligerency was suddenly filling the whole cabin. I woke Christina and looked up at the giant Indian man, not so dapper, not so sweet. 

"Hi, we don't have ticket, we came from another train, there was a - "

"Give me ticket now! Give me ticket!"

"Sir, we we were on another train and it was deviated and they told us to come on this train instead - "

"Where is your ticket! Show me ticket! This is my train!"

"Sir the information - the booking - told us to come on this train."

"I am the conductor! You find me! If problem you find me I am here!" he shouted, despite not seeing this man once in five hours. 

"Just give him the other ticket," Christina said, and I handed him the ticket from our original train, which he looked over quietly for a few moments. 

"This ticket is not valid! This ticket is not valid! This is train 12617! This is wrong train! You are not first passenger! You cannot come here! This is first passenger! You must buy ticket! This is no valid!" We couldn't get a word in edgewise. On he went, shouting over our attempts to explain the situation. 

"Sir, what can we do? We just want to go to Margao. They told us to come on this train."

"I am the conductor! This is not valid, you get off next stop or you go to general." Lord no, I thought. We'd made it halfway.

"Can we buy tickets to stay?"

"No ticket available! No tickets! You get off next stop!" I took a deep breath. Finally, the climax I sensed all day. Handle it right, I thought. Honey is better than vinegar, I thought. Pause. 

"Or you buy ticket," he said practically under his breath. 

"Great! We want to buy these seats! How much?" Christina jumped at the opportunity. 

"We can buy these seats?" I asked. 

"Yes, you can buy! 2,000 rupees."

"Ok great we'll buy them," I said, reaching for my wallet. 

"Wait wait wait I get book," he said, leaving the cabin. Christina and I stared at each other, trying not to laugh, trying not to be scared. He came back a moment later, and sat down next to me with a handful of papers: train schedules, scribblings, old tickets. He scanned up and down the schedule for a few moments, looked at my paper, shuffled things around, doing official business, of course. He sighed. 

"Ok you want to stay give me some money."

"Ok...how much?" I said, the 2,000 rupees already in my hand. He stood up, filling the cabin with his large frame. He shrugged and motioned back and forth between me and Christina. "Your ticket is ok just choose give me some money you are ok."

I handed him a thousand rupees. 

"Ok! Train reach Margao at 3:15. You sleep now! I will come to wake you when we reach there. No problem! Sleep. Here!" He pushed Christina off her seat and thrust the blankets at her. "Here you open!" he said, his voice filled with kindness as he showed her how to turn the bench into a bunk. He turned to me, "You have a pillow?" Taking one off the top bunk and handing it to me. "Let me show you to lock the cabin so no one can enter! Here you have curtain!" He moved toward the sliding door, pushed back the curtain and displayed the lock and unlock positions with the grandeur of a first class stewardess. "Ok! 3:15 I wake you. Sleep well!" 

Christina and I laughed until we cried, then she tucked in and soon I heard her snores. Someone had to stay up to make sure we didn't miss the stop, after all.

© 2014 Caroline Joan Peixoto