For those who want to see an interesting slice of India, I highly recommend travelling by train, the way most Indians travel around their country. The trains are usually very punctual and efficient. Over 20,000 trains run on a daily basis in India which is mindboggling to this American, who rarely takes the train. Indian trains are made for people transportation; American ones are made for the transportation of things. In the US, trains account for around 2.5 trillion tons of freight being shipped hither and yon. In my home state of Washington, you often see Boeing 737 fuselages being shipped to other Boeing plants for their final assembly. In India, freight trains only account for 1.2 million tons of transport. Indian trains are geared for people.

              While the Indian Railway system is intended for people, it is not for last-minute planners. Founded in 1853, one must think like a 19^th century military strategist to conquer the train schedules, route maps, and decipher catering services. It is a labyrinth or maybe quagmire is the more accurate term. If one attempts this alone on the Indian Railways’ homepage, he or she may need a favorite treat or drink to get through the grueling process. For those less adventurous, a trip to the local travel agent makes it much easier and simpler to figure out.

              My time as an Indian Fulbrighter provided me the chance to travel on a few different routes, but the most adventurous was a trip from Howrah Station in Kolkata to Puducherry (Pondicherry). The February journey consisted of 38 hours on the train. I still can’t tell if it was an act of a savvy traveler or of supreme stupidity, but either way it was an unforgettable experience.

              Our train was scheduled to leave Howrah Station at 11:30pm (or in railroad schedule time 23:30pm) on Sunday. My travel companion and fellow Fulbrighter, Becca Brown, and I arrived early to find our train and wait. Howrah is India’s busiest railway terminals. One million passengers pass through this station on a daily basis. These numbers don’t take into account the vendors, police, pigeons or stray dogs that find their way inside. Truly a city in its own right, Howrah station boasts 23 platforms for trains coming and going. To call it a “zoo” seems like an understatement since it is like the largest cacophony of people, animals, machines, and pure energy anywhere in the world. The dog with the trots on our platform probably would’ve preferred something different for his life, but nothing in India goes according to plan.  We wandered through the hot and heavily-scented tumult for an hour hoping to find our train.

              When we found the proper platform, we discovered a wrinkle in our travel plans—being waitlisted. When I checked in from the comfort and quiet of my flat, I had written down the two letters “WL” from my online PNR inquiry (this is the number which is similar to your booking code for airlines). When traveling by Indian train, you often have to check online to see which train carriage and berth you have been assigned. Even if you have an assigned seat, it never hurts to double-check since things change here. My problem was that I had no idea what “WL” meant on my ticket and that it meant “waitlisted.” As Becca and I struggled in vain to look for a railways employee, I decided to just step on the only 2AC car to see if we could get some help. I found a young man on the carriage we assumed was ours since we paid for 2AC seats, there was only one 2AC car. The process of elimination led this amateur Sherlock to this carriage. The young man, not a railways employee but helpful nonetheless, showed me the Indian Railways page and we entered in my PNR inquiry number. It revealed the same information I had in my hand about being “WL.” We hadn’t made any progress and I left the car to wait on the platform.

              Meanwhile, Becca had sprinted down to the main bulletin board for our track to see if she could find our names on the printed out passenger list to see if our names were there, which proved futile since the dot matrix printer had run out of ink making the list too faint for her to read. Both our efforts had met with failure.

              Before Becca returned, the young man reappeared next to me. I was lost in reverie thinking about the diarrheal dog and all that cacophony of sights and smells that evening, when the young man appeared out of the blue and said, “Sir, I found your seat." We were indeed on that car and our berths/beds were 20 & 22, upper berths. My heart sank again since we had been told that we were going to get lower berths.

             Train berths are interesting things. They are a wonder to me since I have little experience on trains. In the US when we travel by train (especially on the East Coast), we buy a seat; this makes the experience very much like flying. There are less expensive and more expensive seats which are a bit more roomy and plush, but either is still a glorified chair. In India, you aren’t buying any kind of seat; you are buying one bed in a 4-bed space. If you get a lower berth, your bed turns into a sitting couch by day and becomes a bed by night. If you get an upper berth, you get a bed two feet from the ceiling and nothing else. It was this detail which made my heart sink. The upper berths are simply not made for people with 6-foot, 3-inch American frames like me. As a stout, middle-aged American male, I was more than a little worried about this.

             We got our bags settled and, tired from the day, were anxious to set up our individual spaces. The older couple in the lower berths made their beds neatly and with professional efficiency. We watched them as they took the provided heavy old-horse blanket-looking spread and placed it next to the plasticized mattress. Then they put a furnished flat sheet #1 over the ‘blanket’ and then added sheet #2 as a top sheet. They each brought out their own blankets to go over the top sheet. A thin pillow and towel were also provided. I just put my backpack on top of the neatly folded horse blanket. Then I put the pillow on top of the backpack, grabbed a sheet and covered my body with that. Like some sort of Old West army soldier, I slept on the plastic mattress with just one sheet to cover me. It didn’t cover me well. I slept with my clothes on since I had nowhere to change. The AC part of being in 2AC meant that we had air conditioning which was blasting on our top bunks. Were it not for my clothes and that one thin sheet, I might’ve frozen to death on that train in India. The headlines could have read, “American dies of hypothermia on Indian Railways.”

             Thankfully, the train car rocked gently from side to side as we traveled through the dark from Bengal on our way to Pondicherry. I tried to drift off to sleep but to no avail. Our elderly companions seemed to have some sort of undetermined sickness; I couldn’t tell if it a sign of age or a symptom of a more recent illness. The old man coughed and coughed. With the earliest headlines filled with stories of coronavirus, this was my obvious diagnosis. I must say I’m not a doctor and have never played one in film or on TV, so I have no ability to diagnose anyone, but everyone nowadays is a WebMD and infectious disease expert. But I spent the evening listening to him wheeze, cough, sometimes spit, sometimes fart, and repeat it through the night. Becca, on the other hand, wisely brought an eye mask, ear plugs, and her own blanket to keep warm. She slept like a serene baby. I was ever so slightly jealous. But somehow, I did manage to fall asleep and have some of the strangest dreams.

             I awoke to the sounds of the chaiwallah: “Cha, Cha, Cha.” It almost sounded like the chugging of an old-fashioned steam locomotive. Our elderly companions rose, flipped on the ugly florescent light, and the day began only seven hours into our journey. I knew the Indian Railways employees sold food and other drinks such as chai, bottled water and coffee. I grabbed my phone and ordered our lunch via an E-catering app, the new “it” thing for Indian Railways. I ordered veg (vegetarian) thalis for Becca and me, which was prepared for us at the Visakhapatnam Railway Station and was delivered right to our bunks upon our arrival. We ate like starved animals.  Our aged companions by contrast ate from their neatly prepared tiffin and drank from their thermos.

The remainder of the day was spent either reclining or walking the train. We occasionally found ourselves needing the restroom which was a squat toilet affair at the end of our train car. There were two of them, but both had “water” on the floor. Depending on the time of the day, there was more or less of it on the ground. I tried to not think about it much but just got about the business and got out. It must be said that our restrooms were generally cleaner than the ones in other cars since our car had the fewest passengers in it. Fewer people used our toilets so therefore less mess. We were also blessed with the new bio toilets on the trains. In theory, they are supposed to take the waste and pass it through a bunch of anerobic bacteria to make it into water and gas. The gas allegedly evaporates into the air; the wastewater, treated with chlorine, is dumped onto the tracks. Our toilets bubbled and gurgled like the paint pots in Yellowstone National Park -- occasionally breaking a bubble and exploding along the inner sides of the toilet. This is supposed to be a vast improvement over the previous toilets which were just rolling outhouses. Those 20,000 trains a day must have left a giant brown streak across all of India, but now it is being captured for something more environmentally friendly. But let us never speak of these things again.

             The evening came upon us and unlike most of urban India, people started to go to bed when it got dark. By 9pm, the car was silent save for our coughing companions. I was once again clothed and sleeping on my backpack. I slept a bit better than the first night but still not great. Becca looked angelic as she slept for a good eight hours. Again, we were struck by strange dreams as the train passed Nellore, Tirupati, and Vellore Cantonment. Like the previous day, we were awakened to the sounds of railway employees hawking chai and other goodies.

             Upon awakening, we knew we were much closer to our destination, mere hours away. We awoke and put all of our things away and waited. Becca walked the train. I finally brushed my hairy teeth. Our aged companions put away all their extra blankets, medicines, tiffin, etc. They neatly folded all of their sheets and left them to one end of their beds. They sat cross-legged and chatted with each other. They answered their cell phone and discussed the phone calls. As we pulled into Pondicherry, they waved to a much younger looking man who waved back on the platform. He followed our car until it came to a stop and they took their bags out to meet him. Becca and I having no one to greet us and far less rushed than everyone else were the last people to leave our temporary home.

             We stumbled out of the train car on the Pondicherry platform and smelled salt air mixed with the smell of flowers whose fragrance permeated the air. Then we found our way to our Airbnb. Thirty-eight hours of train travel were over and we both grinned with a bit of satisfaction like conquering heroes. We were a little fatigued from the journey and perhaps bedraggled in appearance, but we had survived. We were like most Indians in this country who travel by train. I doubt we will ever approach the efficiency of our mature train companions, but hope springs eternal. One day if we keep practicing, we might just get close to it but in the meantime, we will enjoy the journey for what it is and think about all of that green countryside we never really saw much of. But for an experience of people, sounds, sights, smells, and memories of India, the trip to Pondicherry will forever be lodged in my memory in world before coronavirus. India really is best experienced by train.