Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The people keep coming.

The second-class train car is full when Chandran, Prabath and I get on in Coimbatore. All seats are over occupied with sleeping babies strewn across laps, holy men sleeping in luggage racks and steel food containers rolling about on the floor. More people have followed us on, so standing room only has turned into merely space available. The train creeps from platform one and a few brave stragglers jump into the open doors, which are protruding with bodies. Chandran leaps into the luggage rack to create a seat and Prabath and I cling to the rail. The arms of the standing passengers cling tree-like to the rail of a forest that I look through. People stare curiously at me. In my narrow space I read in my newspaper about Cricket, Pakistan’s new coalition government and the Obama-Clinton race. I look up and yes, many are staring, some smile.
The first and only stop on this express train before we reach our destination is Tirrupur. A few people get off but dozens more get on. Silly me, I thought the train was full already. I decide to seek my fortune in sitting in the luggage rack with a small space created by Chandran. I take off my sandals, and pull myself and sit, yes, Indian style. This bird’s eye view sees that space available has turned into wherever a human body will fit. The holy man in the luggage rack behind me has awoken and is now chanting. He is wrapped in brilliant yellow and orange. His soft chants are the delicate chorus to the harmony of cell phone ringing, the ping twang of Indian music, crying babies and a hundred people speaking Tamil.
My western idea of personal space now fully challenged, I now hear the delicate cry of coffeeeey, coffeeeeeeey. This familiar cry peppers every train stop. The coffee man carries a bag of paper cups and a large, hot metal tub of coffee and plys his way forcefully through the crowd. Where there was no space, enough is found for the coffee to make it through. I sip coffee for 5 rupee (about 13 cents). Meeting the coffee man from the other end of the compartment is the sound of Modigaal, Modigaaaaal- roasted peanuts in small cones of newspaper selling for 2 rupee. The peanuts sell well to the thick crowd and the frail woman selling them has a large grin on her face. As I munch on peanuts the air is soon full of peanut shell chaff, floating about from the wind rushing in from the windows. The chaff swirls like snow through the forest of arms and lands gently on the sleeping babies’ faces. I look around and perhaps now the train is full, at least for a few minutes.

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