A Word from the Editor: Welcome to a new series in the Goodbye Baby website, excerpts from a book-in-progress by India traveler Marx Ward. Browsing though cyberspace, Marx discovered my interest in 1940s India. Both of our fathers served in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater during WWII. Marx has spent many weeks exploring Calcutta and environs, walking in his late Dad’s footsteps. As you may know, I explored my father’s WWII correspondence in From Calcutta with Love, soon to be released by Pajarito Press. Marx’s vignettes are filled with a wonderful East-meets-West flavor. Enjoy!India is never asleep, there’s (always) somebody close by, awake. There’s always somebody talking, if only whispering. There are (always) lights on, music on and off, mopeds, rickshaws, train horns, yawning, snoring, marital spats – all pretty much out in the open, oh, and (always) a baby squawking here and there. All of that – always.
I wanted to go to the city of Dwarka, Gujarat so I had to catch a train known as the “Saurashtra Mail” coming from Bombay and ending (all the way) in Dwarka. It was to be a fourteen-hour mega ride. Of course, to make things interesting I had to catch the train in the little city of Bulsar/Valsad – at two o’clock in the morning.
As I said, India never really sleeps and Indian train stations -never sleep, too. I took a local rickshaw cross country, in the middle of the November night to the station. All I remember was – it was a pitch-black ride, cold and windy, loud, dusty, with a thousand horn honks and finally – over – reaching the strangely bright, colorfully lighted, train station, after midnight.
The first thing a westerner notices at an Indian train station is people sleeping in the middle of the grand room floor, spread out like a bomb had went off; kids, luggage, feet, legs, and blankets everywhere. Passing through that, you reach the track gate area, also, with folks sleeping here and there on the benches, on the ground, all in no particular order. There are snack venders (still) open (if they ever close) selling strange brands of potato chips and other Indian things, little bottles of soft drinks and water, and a few railroad employees yapping with each other -with one or the other – always having a cigarette hanging from their lips.
Eventually, it’s time for the train to arrive and anxiousness seems to fill the platform as passengers start gathering for the event. Others just rollover as it’s not their train. Soon the great orange-colored Indian Railways engine came proudly down the track followed by the twenty or so bright red cars of the “Mail”. As I was one of the gatherers (too), I had quickly found my platform spot for my reserved train car “HA”. I’m not sure what “HA” meant, but that’s where my friend and I stood, and I was surprised when our “HA car” stopped right at that place! This is India you know.
When the train stopped it was rushed by the crowd of “get on-ners” who immediately started competing with the tired and slow-moving crowd of “get off-ers”. We kind of stood back until the initial attacks concluded and then slowly hopped up the couple of steps into the red metal behemoth, passing the weird area between two cars and slowly pacing down into a long dark passageway – we ventured – looking for our berths. Fortunately, they were very near -and in seconds we were climbing on the awkward side posts and plopping into our blue vinyl bunk beds, top racks. An attendant came by and checked off our names and tickets; handed us two “Western Indian” railroad sheets and faded white towels (all in a big brown paper Western Indian railroad stamped envelope) and we were set. We couldn’t help but make all kinds of racket as we opened the big envelopes and attempted to spread the sheets on the bunks – all, while two old Indian folks snored and hacked away – on the bunks below us.
I struggled to get organized, vaguely spreading out one of the sheets, situating my rucksack, and finally – I just lay there, worn out, from the midnight experience. But I must admit, at that point I felt pretty good and it wasn’t but a few seconds and I was drifting away.
But this is India. Just as I was drifting off, the old guy under – us sat up on the bed and let out a horribly loud burp or something? It scared the hell out of me, and at first, I thought it was a joke or something. Then he did it again and I realize, he had some kind of issue. I’d never heard anything like that.
Anyway, as I said – this was India. I rolled over and went to sleep. The train rambled on through the night.
Join Elaine for her monthly posts on the writing life, and seeing the world through adoption-colored glasses. Her newest work— From Calcutta with Love – The WWII Letters of Richard and Reva Beard — will be released by Pajarito Press in early summer. Don’t miss a single post: sign up her website and follow her on Bluesky @elaine_pinkerton.bsky.social on Threads @juniperjunctionauthor.
