Today was "find some clothes" and "watch some cricket" day, before making our way to Nizamuddin Station to catch the Dehra Dun Express to Sawai Mandhopur where we will be spending 4 days, hopefully seeing at least one tiger on the 5 excursions planned out to the Ramthambore .National Park.
There were big screens around Delhi where people could watch the game live, the atmosphere was terrific! Men on mobiles listening in, cheers everytime a ball was bowled. People with Indian flags painted on their faces. By the end of the day, I had become quite educated about the game, having taken absolutely no interest all my life! We watched the game unfold as we ate our first curry of the holiday, the waiters managing to be very attentive despite the obvious distraction! Any conversation with them put on hold momentarily if a cheer arose from the stadium! Thanks Chris for the quick overview of both teams and players that you gave us last week, it was a good starting point. (Thanks too for the result which we learned on waking this morning, Sunday) the game still in progress as we waited to board the train last night with the score at 146 :3, (or near enough!) dodging around the jovial spectators watching on the screen erected at the railway station.
As it was, the train was an hour late, which for me meant people watching without hopefully drawing too much attention to myself.(!)A commuter train arrived and off jumped a small boy who must have been about 8-10, I guess, difficult to say as Indian kids are smaller than English ones. He was obviously quite savvy about all things railway, sat himself down on the platform with a cup of hot water and teabag plus wrapped wafer all of which he had been holding as he leapt off the moving train, proceeded to dip the tea bag and sit cross-legged in the shadows....It was 11pm, the platform teeming with people and railway porters carrying cases (note, plural) on their heads whilst negotiating flights of steps and bestrewn bodies. Rag pickers even younger than the small boy, jumped on to the rails, carrying white hessian-type bags over their shoulders, little boys and girls who should have been tucked up under duvets with their cuddly toys, streetwise children who had known no other life...
This isn't my picture, I found it online, but it gives you an idea of what I mean.
The train arrived, the longest passenger train I have ever seen and somewhere within its carriages was a compartment prebooked for us....After walking up and down, getting on and then getting off again, the stress within me was beginning to build. Then we saw a wonderful sight, a man with a list, the list that was to be slapped on to the outside of the 1st class carriages which would tell us what we needed to know! Trouble was it was pitch dark by then, so a mobile was used as a torch and much relief ensued (from the girls, at least!) to see our names and the info that we were in Compartment F. The boys took the top bunks and we arranged our bedding and backpacks. Having no suitcases to haul around definitely had advantages! And so to bed, but to be honest,not really to sleep, although we all agreed, we must have slept a bit in stages, unlike some of the other passengers who were piled into carriages further down the train, with small children. As I lay in my bunk, I thought about Puja who is now 6 years old, who was born on a train just like this one, the Puja express (which is how she got her name- which means worship) on Good Friday 2005, She was thrown down the toilet and left on the rails to die. However the slum community that lined the side of the railway track where she lay, soon heard her newborn cries. As this slum, Mayapuri was a slum where asha www.asha-india.org worked the woman soon set to cleaning her up and caring for her needs. I met her when she was 4 days old....today she is a lively little girl much treasured by the family who have adopted her.
There was something rather rhythmical about the swaying and clatter of the train through the night. I've never slept overnight in a train, unlike the other three, so it was a little thrill!
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