Kolkata to Varanasi by train

Tags

Bojack Horseman, happiness, Incredible India, India, Indian train journeys, Kolkata, Love India, mindfulness, Netflix, Safety, Travel

Draft book chapter

We got a taxi to the train station which gave us a view of Kolkata whilst being insulated inside our ac car.  We passed steel shops full of pipes and sheets of steel, lots of small trade or industrial units, like the auto parts area of Chennai.

There was the odd newly painted or well maintained building that stood out amongst the grey.  Pavement stalls sold basic provisions; I saw a stallholder sitting on the floor measuring out handfuls of rice or flour with his hand into newspaper packets.

We saw a big metal bridge, and huge grand colonial buildings, one big and red, they seemed to be mainly banks.

Kolkata train station was busy outside and in.  There was a big board with all the trains on, we were early and there was nothing about our train yet.  We went into a food place, it had a quieter seating area upstairs that was calm.  The manager came up to us and shook my husband’s hand, and asked us for our order; he looked a little crestfallen when we only ordered veg fried rice, a safe staple for travelling.

‘See, there’s always someone,’ my husband said.  Always in India there seemed to be someone who offered help or came to befriend or talk to us.

The station master told us which platform.  Our train was called The Doon Express, which sounded like something from Harry Potter.

The station wasn’t really that bad after all.  I’d been preparing myself, having watched the film Lion, but actually, after having food and then going back down and hanging about, it wasn’t as hectic as I’d thought.

There were a few dogs lying down, just sleeping right in the middle amongst where people walked.  There were lots of people on blankets, not sleeping rough, just encamped waiting for trains.

The colours of Kolkata station seemed to be navy blue.  A woman in a navy blue kurta and blue leggings, another woman dressed all in navy blue with a white scarf; a Sikh man wearing a navy blue velvet turban.

On the platform itself, it was dirty and dusty.  The train was delayed so we had a bit of a wait.  A man hung around us and stared at us a lot, in the end my husband shouted at him to go.  I felt uncomfortable, but it seemed like he was after money rather than being a threat.  There was an Indian man standing near us, and I felt as if he would have helped had we needed.  Another Indian man asked my husband about the train; although we were at the correct platform, we’d been advised to keep listening to the announcements as platforms can be changed at any time, which meant no one was 100% certain.  It meant we made a connection with someone on the platform.  I bought water from the platform kiosk and the man was super friendly which further reassured me.

There was a big queue for the regular class, people with big plastic drums, I didn’t know what of, food stuff, containers of possessions, goods?

We saw a fellow tourist and thought we were probably in the same class, and walked up the platform in the same direction as him.

Anthony the waiter had booked our tickets before we started booking our own.  We were in three tier, which is a step down from two, with shabby looking chains and no curtains.

A family got on, they seemed really hesitant to sit down, I wondered if it was because the women and girls didn’t want to sit next to my husband; he moved, we tried to offer to move places, us to move to the two side beds, allowing them the whole bay with the set of four beds, but we weren’t able to communicate with each other.

Just before the train left most of their party got off anyway as they were just saying goodbye, and some of the others went off to seats elsewhere.

A grandmother from a different family with a baby came to see us, ‘Say hi,’ she said to the baby.  She gave me the baby to hold, nonchalantly.  The baby’s parents came to chat.  They explained that they were a party of eight on a thirty-six hour journey to visit a Hindu pilgrimage site.  A family with a tiny baby, on a thirty six hour train journey, that’s how important their religion is.

We showed the family pictures of where we had stayed in Kolkata, the Grandmother’s face was a picture; they didn’t share our enchantment with the old buildings.

The baby was after the mum’s glasses.  The Grandmother tried to encourage the baby to take my husband’s glasses when he wasn’t looking.  She called us Grandfather and Grandmother to the baby.  ‘Not Auntie and Uncle?’ I asked, ‘No no, Grandfather, Grandmother,’ she said firmly.  Fair enough, okay, we’re old enough.

The woman, the baby’s mum, pointed at my Om pendant and asked me if I knew what it meant.  I gave a solid explanation and she nodded and seemed satisfied.  ‘Why are you going to Varanasi?’ she asked.  Indian people can be very direct.  My husband answered that one.  ‘India is one of the holiest countries in the world, and Varanasi is one of the holiest places in India, and the feeling you get from being in such a place is something we really appreciate, even though we aren’t Hindus.’

The family chatted to us for ages then left.  It was so sweet of them.  ‘Do you think they all just decided to come and talk to us? That they said to each other, let’s go and talk to them?’  My husband said.  We were the only foreigners we could see in our carriage.  Often when travelling on the train it was the same; we often wondered how the foreigners got to places.

I finished my blog and then we watched Netflix.  Like reading people’s blogs, Netflix provided a continuity, a thread that held me, wherever we were.

The comfort of watching BoJack Horseman together on my husband’s tablet.  As the silky intro music came on, languid with a sound like bubbles popping, I felt a wave of emotion and my eyes almost filled up.

‘Wherever you go, that’s where you are.’*  That’s true.  My white room in Harleston, my husband had gone out, I had stayed in feeling ill with a cold, and was cosy and happy watching endless BoJack; that music, the colours…  Every hotel room, every place.  The only thing I’m homesick for, is here.

I brushed my teeth and got into bed, my husband checked the chains to reassure me before I climbed up.  There was a clean white cotton sheet and a thick heavy charcoal woollen blanket.  I folded my scarf lengthwise and hung it over the chains which were covered in vinyl sleeves.

I lay there, I felt the train, lots of shaking and movement, and relaxed.  I felt myself come back into India, and India come back into me.  Moving, clanking, like gears, like a chiropractor, like my body assimilating into India again, adjusting.  I felt safe, and I slept.

At four am the half of the family that were seated elsewhere came to the half that were near us, started chatting with each other and woke us up.  At five am they got off and more people got on, people just talking normally with no concession to people sleeping.  ‘This is India,’ we had to tell ourselves.

At six am I gave up trying to go back to sleep up and got up.  I went to the loo and afterwards I stood looking out of the door- at least one of the doors are usually wide open on the trains.

Outside there was miles and miles of green.  There were derelict buildings, some being used as dwellings.  In the middle of the expanse of green there was a little gold temple.  I felt India say to me, ‘I got you.’  I wasn’t afraid anymore, and all the love was back.

Thank you very much for reading

*Jon Kabat-Zinn

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Currently in Vietnam.  Returning to the UK in three weeks to live on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

Ganesh and the cat

Tags

Cats, India, Pushkar, Rajasthan

This cat often napped in a sunny spot in the outdoor area near our room in Pushkar.  Nearby was a tree, the same one that the monkeys often visited.  Lying or sitting on the big branches the cat was almost perfectly camouflaged due to its coloring.  This was unfortunate for the bird population; Ganesh from the guesthouse said that there used to be so many more birds in the tree, even parrots.

The cat was not at all friendly.  In the evenings it sat on a wall near the entrance to the guesthouse.  My husband tried to stroke it and got scratched- not for the first time on this trip.

When we told Ganesh about this, he looked sorrowfully at us and explained, ‘I have tried so hard to make that cat love me.  As you know there is no meat in Pushkar* so I went on my scooter to (town several kilometres away) and bought fish and chicken especially for the cat.  I fed the cat the chicken and the fish, then I put my hand out and it scratched me!  Then I showed the cat YouTube videos of cats being cats.  The cat watched those videos for twenty minutes, then it scratched me again!  Three times that cat scratched me that day.  I don’t love that cat anymore.’

*No meat, no eggs, no alcohol.  Although there is a restaurant that has eggs and alcohol on the menu, and other places that sell alcohol discreetly.

Thank you very much for reading

Monkeys!

Tags

India, Monkeys, Pushkar, Travel, Travelling

Near the temples by the holy lake is a small courtyard garden area.  One morning my husband saw it when it was full of monkeys, firstly all competing and jostling for positions, then settling down in their spots on the building or in the tree.

Another morning at the same place he saw just a few adults with lots and lots of baby monkeys, like a crèche, the baby monkeys swinging on the wires, doing somersaults and apparently having a great time.

I went back with him a few mornings later, no crèche but the two nearby trees were full of monkeys.  A man warned us not to stand underneath, ‘They may go to the toilet,’ he said.  ‘This is India, everything is out in the open.’

He was from Pushkar but lives in France and runs an Indian restaurant.  Indian restaurants are much less common in France and Germany than the UK because of the language barrier.  Many Indian people can speak  English, which is why there are lots of Indian people in Canada, the US and the UK, and hence we are also extremely fortunate to have so many Indian restaurants and take aways that even a small town will have at least one.

There was a small shrine in the courtyard garden/monkey crèche; the man said he does pooja and leaves offerings to honour his father but the monkeys destroy it, ‘I don’t mind,’ he said.  ‘This used to be all jungle, they were here first.’

There are two types of monkey in Pushkar, the black faced ones with the long tails, and the more stocky, shorter tailed red faced ones.
Both are found out and about in the town, and by the lake where they are fed along with the cows, birds and dogs.

Monkeys seem to enjoy making noise, one day at the lake I watched a succession of monkeys running along the ghats, each one leaping up to slam against a half open metal door that banged loudly shut before springing open ready for the next monkey to do the same, apparently just for fun.

At the guesthouse the arrival of monkeys is announced by the sound of them jumping heavily across corrugated metal roofs, a sound like firecrackers or thunder.

The black faced monkeys are welcome at the guesthouse, and do not cause any trouble, generally staying in the trees and coming down onto the flat roofs to be fed puri or left over chapatis from the restaurant.  ‘They are family friends.’ Ganesh from the guesthouse told us.

Both types of monkeys sometimes go up and down the stairs to the rooftop and garden like guests, but the red faced monkeys are braver and bound unafraid into the area right outside the rooms.  The red faced monkeys are disliked by the staff, who chase them with sticks.  Ganesh told me that these monkeys can be aggressive to humans, ‘make trouble’ for the black faced monkeys, and fight badly amongst themselves.

When I was sitting outside typing, Ganesh came to stand beside me with a stick. ‘I come to protect you.’  ‘Be careful, they come, you move,’  Ganesh calls the red faced monkeys ‘Donald Trump’ because they are always fighting.  The other, nice monkeys he calls ‘Barack Obama.’

In the interest of balance, I should say that Aloo Baba (see previous post), who lives in the desert and has planted lots of trees over the years, prefers the red faced monkeys, as he says the black faced monkeys jump around in the trees too much and break the branches.

In December we go back to Hampi, where there are monkeys everywhere in the town and in the temples.  People feed them bananas and coconut and except for them coming into your room and taking things that they think might be food, they are not scary.

Thank you very much for reading

Pushkar Babas

Tags

Aloo Baba, Babas, India, Potato Baba, Pushkar, Pushkar Lake, Rajasthan

Accepting the offer of a cup of coffee or chai and sitting down for a chat or just to spend some time together with the Babas at the lake was one of my favourite experiences in Pushkar.  Most even have paper cups so you don’t need to worry about hygiene, and the pots and pans are kept very clean as the fire is considered holy and cooking a spiritual practice.  Some speak English, some don’t, sometimes a passing friend will act as an informal translator, or if not it’s okay to just sit.  Their home is their temple, respectful visitors remove their shoes, do not take photographs without asking, and offer something; money, blanket, ghee, milk, food, either at the time or as a gift at the end of one’s stay in Pushkar.

Naga Baba (above)

Naga Baba who is currently staying by Pushkar Lake, went to live with a Baba when he was ten years old.  Apparently sometimes parents give their child to a Baba to give thanks for help they have received.  Naga Baba can lift great weights with his penis.  ‘If you meditate for fifteen years, you become very strong.’

Ram Dass (above)

Ram Dass was taken in by a temple at the age of seven when his parents died.  He has lived by the lake for ten years.  Like Naga Baba he lives out in the open.  He cooks his meals and makes chai on his holy fire which never goes out.  He built the fire pit himself, and built a second one while we were there.  He is preparing to move into a small tunnel like a cave under the bridge, at nights during the winter.  In the hottest months of the summer he goes to stay with other Babas in the Himalaya mountains.  He mediates every morning from three to six am, meditating on all the world and all the people.  ‘That is my work.’

Aloo baba (above)

A few miles outside Pushkar is Aloo Baba (potato baba), he has eaten only potatoes for the past thirty five years.  Now in his seventies he looks fit and well and says he still walks up the nearby mountain to keep fit.  As well as advocating physical work to make and keep the body strong, he also believes in control.  Control eating- hence the potatoes, which he cooks with salt and a little chilli; control speech, and control looking:  ‘Every woman is my mother or my sister.’  ‘No family, God life or family life, can’t have both.’

 

Towards the end of our stay I did see a female baba in Pushkar, presumably newly arrived amongst several other ‘new’ Babas we had seen here for the upcoming festival.  Ganesh from the guesthouse told us that there are Western women Babas in Varanasi, ‘As white as you,’ he said to me.  ‘And do they also sleep outside?’  I asked.  ‘Yes.’  ‘Are they safe?’  ‘Yes.’

Thank you very much for reading

Sab kuch milega: Anything is possible

Tags

Anything is possible, Couchsurfers, India, Inspiration, Inspirational people, Pushkar, Sub kuch milega, Travel, Travelling, Workstay

Sab kuch milega: Anything is possible

 

Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

Drinking ginger lemon tea at a street stall we met a man from Spain, aged forty-four, who has spent the past year cycling from Spain to India.  He is doing it all on a tall bike, the height of two bicycles put on top of each other.  He camps, which he tries to do after dark as he attracts so much attention and interest from the locals, albeit all positive.  He showed us a photograph of a big group of local people who had come to his camp to meet him, to see how he cooks, and to ask questions about his bike and his trip.  Arriving tired and wanting to wash and rest he often has curious visitors descend on him, who also arrive early the next morning and wake him up; although upon opening the tent to see lots of smiling faces peering at him he said it was impossible to be annoyed.  See his blog, it is in Spanish but WordPress offers a translate button.

On the bus we met H, an English woman aged thirty-one who has been away from the UK for seven years, teaching English in Spain for a few years but otherwise travelling using work stay and couchsurfers, (next stop Australia. (hosting a couch surfer also sounds great, scroll down the couchsurfers page to read a host’s view, it brought a tear to my eye!)  This was H’s fifth time in India, she said that often when travelling on buses she is the only foreigner, and her experience has been safe and positive.  We have met lots of solo female travellers and they have all said the same thing, despite the horror stories.  M, a young woman from New Zealand said that her experience had been that Indian people only want to check she’s okay.

H introduced us to J, a twenty-five year old man from Scotland, he has been away from home for four years, again using work stay, doing the online marketing for a trekking company in Nepal, building clay ovens, volunteering, and occasionally spells in a ‘proper job’ earning money for the next stage.

At our guesthouse we met a Spanish couple in their forties who come to India regularly as he buys fabric and has bags made which he then sells to tourists in the Canaries where they live.  He just looks to make enough money, not loads, and manages okay.

Also at our guesthouse we met a British man, fifty-two years old, who spent fifteen years living and working in Japan, first as a DJ in a gentleman’s club, then teaching English to kindergarten kids.  He then worked at a bar in Thailand, the job came with free meals and accommodation.  When that ended he returned to the UK, working most of the year and then travelling for a few months in South East Asia during the winter.  This is the fifth UK winter that he has missed.  He has now got it so that his pattern is six months in the UK working, six months travel, via careful budgeting.  ‘I’m a hermit, when I’m in the UK, I don’t go out.’

We met a mother and son, aged ten, from France travelling for a year, they’ve been to Malaysia, Indonesia, French Polynesia; after India they go to Myanmar, Thailand, then have to choose between Cambodia, Laos and The Philippines.  ‘A year is so short,’ he said, and told me he’d met a family with kids aged four, seven and ten who were travelling around the world on a boat for six years.  ‘So much time,’ he said.  He did his studies happily on a tablet in the restaurant, and proudly showed us his worksheets.

At the local juice bar we met a man from Austria who said he was in India for the winter with his partner and children aged two and four.  He said they’ve been good with the food- although they can spot French fries and Fanta on menus!- and their guesthouse has a big outdoor space where they can play.  Next they are going to Goa for the rest of the winter where they have friends, and there is even a kindergarten for the Western kids.  He said, ‘It’s great because here I have time for them, at home I’d be at work, but here, there’s nothing to do.’  ‘I know, the only thing to think about is, do I need to do my laundry, or do I need some shampoo,’ I said.  ‘Yes, go to the Himalaya shop, that’s it,’ he said and we both laughed.

At our guesthouse we met P, a thirty-four year old woman from Costa Rica who came to India to do a yoga and meditation course and is now doing educational and inspirational videos on YouTube.  Up until recently she was married with a house, a business, two cars and all the trappings of what is thought of as a successful life.  Despite this she wasn’t happy; she separated from her husband, dismantled her business, sold the house and cars, and went off to California to trim marijuana plants.  ‘But you have a doctorate!’ her parents said, but she went anyway.  Right now she is volunteering with rescued elephants in Rajasthan, India, and making her videos.

Also at the guesthouse we met A from Portugal, thirty-three, it was her fifth time in India.  She is an organic farmer and showed us beautiful photographs of figs, of which she grows many different varieties, avocados and glossy purple aubergines.  Together with other environmentally minded people she has successfully persuaded her local authority to vote to protect her local environment, not working along political lines, just to protect nature.  She comes to India for the spiritual and healing aspects, and says she comes here as often as she can when her business is quiet; ‘When the trees are asleep.’

Travel update

In Pushkar until 15th November, then to Delhi, briefly, then to Nepal for two weeks.

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week