24/ 100 Auto Rickshaw Dog
The Kind Neigbour
Traveling in India by train is absolutely brilliant. They are very affordable, quite punctual and they are a great way to do a spot of people-watching. When you are traveling, as we were, for three weeks with six weeks-worth of things to see there’s a temptation to be constantly on the move. We usually end up completely shattered by the end of the first week and an Indian train journey is the perfect remedy.
Once you’re on your train there is just about nothing to do other than sit still and look out of the window. Our trip from Jaipur to Jodhpur, across the Thar desert in dusty Rajasthan, took about 5 hours so there was plenty of fascinating scenery scrolling past the window. You can’t walk anywhere. There are no temples to tempt you. You can’t throw yourself into a wild bit of town looking for some interesting photographs. You simply have to give yourself up to the train and sit there.
If you are me then you can’t even read. By some cruel twist of fate I easily get travel sick. I’ve had it ever since I was a child and never grew out of it. Reading on the train is a big no-no, especially as we had unintentionally ended up in the half of the carriage that faced backwards. When you book your ticket you don’t get a say in the facing direction of the seat – only whether or not it is a window or aisle chair. Sitting backwards increases my odds of feeling a bit nauseous however there was nothing I could do about it so I relied upon my mighty Stugeron to do their thing (they are my travel lifeline).
The seats are arranged in rows of three and soon after departing Jaipur train station an Indian man dressed in a suit came and sat in the aisle seat next to me. He introduced himself in the customary way by sharing Instagram contacts with each other. My feed being full of a variety of travel photographs. His, as is completely usual, was full of photographs of himself, with each selfie filtered to the max to enhance his manly beauty.
It turned out he was on his way to his brother’s wedding in Jodhpur and he filled us in on just about every single detail of the entire event. It was genuinely fascinating to hear about Indian weddings compared to the ones I photograph each week here in Scotland. It didn’t take long for all the food sellers to appear, walking up and down the carriage with all manner of things to eat and drink, shouting incomprehensible information about the food they were peddling. One chap sounded like he was shouting ‘fanny water’ which amused our childish brains (we later discovered that he was shouting pani, water – pani is the Hindu word for water).
Since there was no reliable answer to whether or not there would be food on the train we had taken the sensible option and bought along our own unhealthy breakfast – a banana and a very large slice of cake from the tea shop. We had even already had two cups of chai each from the (IRCTC-approved) cafe at the station. Despite sitting there enjoying our picnic my neighbour called aside the one hawkers on the train who was selling mysterious foil packages and bought one of whatever it was before giving it to me.
He said I should try it but when I removed the lid I was immediately faced with a layer of chopped chillies. As I was already pushing my luck eating cake I thought a spicy breakfast could be pushing my stomach a mouthful too far so I did what I always do in these situations to avoid embarrassment. I told him that my wife would absolutely love to try a bit.
Fiona took a spoonful and told him that it was really nice before passing it back to him. No, he said, its for you to keep for you breakfast. I will get another for myself.
And so poor Fiona, with a stomach already sloshing full with tea, banana and cake, sat and munched her way through a not inconsiderable quantity of a breakfast dish called poha. She later said it was quite nice, but also that she had eaten so much she too thought she might be sick.
This incredible kindness was very common in India. We were bought several meals and drinks by strangers and they never wanted anything in return. This man told us that it was a great honour for us to choose to visit his state and he wanted to make a good impression. He certainly succeeded in his mission.
