India Rail

My last post about poverty hasn't sat well with me. We left Mumbai on an express train to Ahmenabad, sitting 2nd class. I'd heard about fun/interesting experiences on India Rail before from friends so was interested in experiencing it for myself. There are several classes of seats and unless you're very adventurous and/or don't have much luggage and/or are fairly fluent in Hindi or a local dialect, 2nd class is about as low as you want to go. It was the only option available to us, so I was happy to try it out.

For the first hour or so we had a fair amount of space. The train was not too crowded (read: there was a seat for nearly everyone, only a few people were standing near the open exit doors). Then came the first stop and the masses poured in. For the next 7 hours or so we were squeezed into our seats with the aisles jam-packed. Periodic chai salesmen and beggars filtered through the crowd. We quickly made friends with a Hindi man sitting next to Laura and slowly got to know a Spanish couple next to me. Our Hindi friend helped explain the scenery we passed: salt farms, fishing villages, industry towns, the city of Surat where 1/2 the worlds diamonds were cut after being imported from Africa (presumably the Sufi community there has a prominent role in this, as many of the Sufis we met on the train when we boared in Mumbai were headed there), the transvestite beggars who passed through the car and who were called "Sixes," like the number. He didn't know why.

But what's been on my mind most is the poverty that is so blindingly visible here.

Three incidents stick out from that train ride to Ahmenabad. The first was a comment about currency, the second involved beggar children passing through our car and the third, and for some reason the most difficult for me, was about getting a visa to visit the USA.

With two hours left to Ahmenabad we were tired and restless. We were running out of conversation topics (it didn't help that my throat was hoarse from the traveller's cold I'm getting over) and our bodies were aching. I pulled out a deck of cards to see if anyone would play Hearts, Spades or Bridge -- something to pass the time entertainingly. After insisting he didn't know any of those games I pressed our Hindi friend to teach me any game he knew. I set up a table on my lap and he taught me what turned out to be Rummy. After a couple hands we joked about gambling.
"Oh, I do not gamble," he said. "Gambling is a bad vice."
"But you play cards," Edu, one of our Spanish friends, interjected.
"But not real cards," our Hindi friend laughed. "OK, let us gamble. I will put down 10 rupees and you will put down 10 American dollars."
We all laughed.
"And they will put down 10 Euros," I nodded to the Spanish couple with a grin. "That's the money you really want. American money isn't very good any more."
I wasn't fooling anyone though. American money is still good enough. (Though I'd still take the Euros.)

Anecdote 2:
As beggars passed through the car I payed attention to how the locals reacted to them and followed their lead. A floor sweeper I tipped a few rupees. To a begging mother and children I gave a little food. But it was a group of young boys -- I'd guess about 8 yrs. old -- who stopped next to our seats and sang in classical Indian-style who threw me off my guard. They sang while we were engaged with Rummy (also a good excuse to ignore beggars -- blindingly visible, you see, the blindness is the intentional visor or second-skin you develop) then, when they were finished, performed the usual ploys for attention and money, tapping us repeatedly on our knees and elbows. They kept at us despite repeated rejections, tapping tapping tapping away and clapping their stone clapper in our faces. Finally one boy performed an act of total supplication. Head in his hands, he bowed his forehead to my leg and held it there. For anyone not versed in Buddhist practice, this was Prince Siddhartha's act of ultimate ego-denial upon becoming the Buddha. Unfortunately, I was only too aware of its significance -- combined with the stunning physicality of having a begging child with his head pressed against my leg.

I am stunned now as I write about it.

Anecdote 3:
This may seem trite after the last one, but at the time it hit me hard. As we neared Ahmenabad our Hindi friend (I'm sorry I'm not using his name, BTW, but we left his business card at the hotel and I was journaling as furiously then as I am now) was joined by another friend of his who was stuck in a seat at the far end of our car. He was introduced around, I didn't catch his name, but learned that he was in Mumbai visiting the US Embassy trying to obtain a visitor's visa to travel and visit his family in the States. He had been turned down. When I asked why I was met with shrugs all around.
"Who knows?" our friend said. "He is a computer engineer, makes good money, has many cousins and uncles in the States, but was turned down anyway."
I must have looked baffled -- I mean, I know this is common but I just had no clue how to respond -- because our friend continued his explanation. "For every 100 applicants, the United States only accepts 2 or 3 people. Many many are turned down."
I didn't know what to say. I'm no immigration expert.
"Be persistent," I offered lamely. The guy wants to visit his family. I had only been in India for 4 days at the time but I had already seen enough to know something of what family means here. Not being able to see your cousins is like, for us, not being able to see your brothers and sisters.

Or, in the (mostly) unique case of my own family, my own cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, second- and third-cousins, and ex-third-cousin-in-laws.

Poverty is less about money, clean clothes and putting food on the table, and more about ... what? Family, I think. All the money in the world is worth nothing compared with a strong, loving network of family and friends.