Buying a Train Ticket in India: A Travel Story
Here’s the story that I promised in my May 23rd post. Enjoy.
When you need to buy a ticket for a 3-hour train ride at a train station in the Western world, you locate the station’s ticket counter; stand in a short, orderly line for a few minutes; give the clerk your money; take the ticket; and go to the platform. Easy enough.
My experience with buying a train ticket from Gaya to Varanasi was a little different.
Matteo and I arrived at the train station about 45 minutes before our train’s scheduled departure. The lines (or “queues,” I should say) at each of the 10 ticket counters were very, very long, so we decided that I would wait in the relatively shorter women-only queue.
Like everything else in the country, queues in India are chaotic and advancing in one is no easy feat. In the men’s queues beside us, the crowd regularly roared and surged forward with every individual who attempted to (and, usually, successfully) cut in front of the others. Officers meanwhile, stood guard at the edge of these queues, enthusiastically wielding their clubs each time a mini-riot broke out.
The women’s queue was a little quieter than the men’s, but no less aggressive. Sneaky women regularly cut ahead of me (often attempting an innocent “What? I’m not cutting!” look) until, desperately realizing that I’d soon miss my only chance to travel to Varanasi that afternoon, I decided to cut off their access points. I firmly grasped the handrail to my left and leaned against the wall to my right.
Naturally, the women in front of me were thrilled with my anti-cutting stance and smiled at me in approval; the women in back were less thrilled. Some decided to test my commitment, and attempted to gently (and then not so gently) nudge me aside. I, in turn, gently (and then not so gently) nudged them back. Several tried to climb underneath my arms, and one determined old woman tried to crawl between my legs. No way ladies.
For your amusement, please imagine me straddling this space between the handrail and the wall. Imagine jostling and screaming from the men’s queues and whack of police clubs. Imagine being in a town that suffers frequent power cuts in the summer, in a train station whose ceiling fans keep turning off, leaving hot, irritated people who don’t wear deodorant pressed together in a crowded hall. Imagine my face dripping with sweat that I am unable to wipe on my equally-drenched dress because, if I do, the increasingly agitated ladies behind me will use the opportunity to tear me apart and throw my lifeless body out of the queue.
And, in retrospect, all of that was relatively simple compared to the moment when a stout, frowning matron in a yellow sari came forward. Having seen her slowly cut her way through most of the line behind me, I guessed that Big Yellow was not one to give up easily. First, she tried to gently move me aside. Then she tried again. Then she moved to my opposite side. Nope. The woman spoke very little English, so I asked another woman next to me who was graciously serving as my translator if Big Yellow had family in the front of the line. She said no, and that the woman was attempting to cut because she was trying to catch the train to Varanasi. The train that I was also trying to catch. Tough luck, I thought. Big Yellow’s going to have to wait.
Then, like several before her, Big Yellow tried to crawl beneath me. Failing this, she gave up the false air of politeness and began screaming at me, thumping me in the chest. Others around us began screaming—the ones in front of me in my defense, the ones behind me rallying around Big Yellow. I, being the culturally sensitive, Buddha-like-patient traveler that I am, hollered back with gusto and, after she thumped me a third time, shook my fist at her face for emphasis. She backed down then, but only for a minute. Then, with a haughty expression, she started telling everyone that I was British. Embarrassed to let on that I was an American (who needs bad publicity?), I proudly declared to the crowd that I was Italian. She then proceeded to scream at me again, yelling all sorts of nasty things in Hindi that my translator ceased to describe. But, bolstered by the support of the women ahead, I stood my ground.
For another 5 minutes or so it appeared that Big Yellow and I had reached a quiet, though uneasy stalemate. Then, as I stood second in line before the counter, she suddenly turned sweet. “Please ma’am. I move forward?” As the woman ahead of me moved aside with her ticket, I shook my head and cried, “No chance, lady!” She and I lunged at the ticket counter. I won.
Now, for your amusement, please imagine me standing in front a plexi-glass window. Imagine my inability to hear the clerk, and the clerk’s inability to hear me, because—in addition to the constant yells and whack of police clubs from the men’s queues—a crazed, red-faced woman in yellow is screaming profanities in Hindi behind me, along with all the other women that I wouldn’t let pass. Imagine them pushing me to the point that my head is through the plexi-glass hole from which you speak to the clerk. Imagine me finally purchasing a ticket for a train that is scheduled to depart 5 minutes earlier.
Ticket firmly in my hand, I waved goodbye to Big Yellow and—with a policeman batting women aside—I tore myself from the crowd with a primal scream and emerged, drenched with sweat and gasping for air.
I did, by some miracle, catch the train. Don’t know—and don’t care—if Big Yellow did.
The end.
Tags: India, RTW 07/08
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