From a train

So, arrived in haridwar after another, almost the final, twenty plus hours on the train...the journey started in an unpromising way, stuck in ac2 class due to it being the only seat available, with an american who seemed unable to communicate out with whining...i spent most of the first part of the journey sitting perched by an open door watching the scenery change....and so, I was grateful to be asked, eight hours into the journey at lucknow,if I would swap berths to allow a group to stay together....of course I said yes, which gave them three of the four berths that they needed, the american said no, which I thought was quite shitty of him...but I ended up sitting with ajai, his wife and two daughters and that transformed things muchly for the better....including some utterly delicious food....you find it too spicy? He asked....I smiled...I was in Kerala and Tamil nadu, I replied scoffing another paratha....

The next hours were spent in delightful conversation, watching his daughter wrap him around her little finger and then found that she had enough space left to wrap me around also as I found myself reading to her from a book of folk tales based upon Akbar, one of the best of the mutual emperors... luckily it was in English, practice for school... I think that ajai found it most amusing, but I've always enjoyed folk tales and it was just a natural continuation of a seven year olds dominance....

And then, an hour late, I arrived here at about 0430...Milo was on the train behind...he'd misread his ticket...so I'd said I'd wait at the station...its different here...the station was full of rough sleepers but it's colder and so there were many heavy blankets..it's harsh to my eyes...odd...I've slept in train stations and doorways and possibly worse, but, here for some reason my sympathy gland started working and once again I wished for a magic wand...one of the topics from chatting with ajai was the motion of India towards a more western style of capitalism, neither of us being much enamoured with the idea...but I see the shift after my decade away, it's one of those thoughts in progress, akin to Varanasi, and I wonder what happens now....will the inherent kindnesses I've always found here slow to a trickle, or, cease completely...or will the madness of the place manage to find a way to avoid this? I hope that the madness will prevail...for all of the squalor and poverty this culture has so many riches and so much "humanity" that it would be a tragedy if a flawed economic theory succeeded where invaders have failed.....

Then Milo arrived, we decided upon a coffee in a small place opposite the railway station, not so dissimilar to a place in Krakow where, many years ago, I was taunted by a Viennese and cooked chicken but spent some wonderful nights seeing another side of the place...today was one coffee as the sun began to clamber towards the horizon...but long enough to be, half, surprised by....ah but that's today and this is yesterday's blip....more anon, maybe....