The Harmless Fool: Night Train to Madurai

I wrote this originally on the 16^th of July, and today is the 20^th. This morning we arrived at the Madurai train station at 4:30 am to ride the express back to Chennai. I have added some pictures from that trip as well. I’m still having a hard time getting onto the web to post this.

We left ourselves four extra hours to make the train station in Chingalpattu—experience had taught us that an hour and a half by bus can easily turn out to be closer to three or four. It took just over an hour. With four hours until our train arrived at 11:40 pm, we settled into a waiting room and scooted the unbolted 3-seat sections of station chairs up to the wobbly wooden tables to eat vegetable sandwiches on white bread. iPads and laptops, notebooks and novels all deployed, we settled in to wait. Darkness crept over the train platform outside while we sat in the fluorescent buzz and looked at the safety posters lining the walls. Some in English, most in Tamil, they warned against crossing the tracks or failing to heed signals with dire words and leering skulls. “Foot crossings the key to long life,” and crossing over the tracks is “the gateway to hell.” It was a cheery little spot.

It was not ours for long though. While Aditi, our fearless leader, was off getting some much needed alone time, a crew of railroad coolies (the red shirted station porters) appeared and wanted to move our bags over to the platform. This was at 9:00 and Aditi had told us we would wait inside until 10:00. They gesticulated and spoke adamantly to our blank firangi faces until Bhavani, curriculum coordinator and native Tamil speaker, arrived to translate. It was going to take some time, apparently, to get the bags to platform six and there was going to be a crowd. We must begin now. The men could sit with the bags on the platform while the women remained in the waiting room (it was nice of them to volunteer us). A group of seventeen with no real leader present, it took us some minutes to decide, while the coolies waited anxiously. Finally we decided that if someone else was going to carry the bags all the way to platform six, they could do it when they wanted to, and besides, one hard railway station chair is the same as another.

The coolies, in their red shirts with red head-wraps hanging like towels around their necks, brought the bags to the very edge of the platform we stood on and then jumped down onto the rails below. I wondered if they hadn’t read the posters in the waiting room or just didn’t care. They ferried the bags to the next platform, and counting, I realized they had another set of tracks to cross before they would reach platform six. And there was a train sitting between them and the destination. So that was the reason for the rush.

Those of us who had volunteered to wait on the platform with the bags chickened out and took the long way up the stairs and over the crossing. That’s the key to long life, after all. We arrived at the middle of platform six and sat down to wait for the bags to show up. Just as we had thought, one hard chair was the same as another, but now we had a breeze. Finally the coolies arrived with the luggage loaded on two big trolleys. They passed us up and, gesturing for us to follow, kept going. A long line of firangi straggled along the platform. Gary and Stacie managed to stay up with the luggage, causing a lot of heads to turn as two white people passed with a crew of helpers pushing eighteen bags. Americans sure do carry a lot of unnecessary junk. By the time we all reached the designated point on the platform, it was 10:00 pm. It had taken an hour to get from the waiting room to the platform. Ok, so maybe the early start was warranted. But here, where we were told the air-conditioned sleeper cars would stop, there we no chairs, just a pair of stone slab benches sitting about eight inches off the ground. We settled down like hobos among our bags to wait for our train.

We had been told that the train would only stop for three minutes and we would have to get all our bags and all ourselves onto the train in that time. Aditi asked the station master to hold the train an extra minute as we had such a large group all going into just two cars. “Two minutes is plenty of time for eighteen people” he said. What happened to three? We watched as another train stopped. Bhavani checked her watch as passengers stepped off and others climbed on. A tea wallah worked his way down the platform calling out. When someone answered, he stopped, hung his pot from the bars on the window, and opened the spout to pour a paper cup full. The tea passed through the window to the thirsty customer and a coin passed back to the vendor. Friends bid a fond farewell, clasping hands through the window. A few stragglers ran to catch the train, running alongside as it began to roll, one hand on the rail, then swinging up through the door just as the train picked up speed. Bhavani checked her watch again. “One minute and forty seconds.”

Everyone had a suggestion for how to organize ourselves for maximum boarding efficiency. Somebody said that they were good at doing what they were told and Kerry agreed, “Yeah, there are too many chiefs already. I’ll be an Indian.” She paused for a beat. “I mean a follower.” Finally we worked out that the women would board first with backpacks and light bags while the men formed a bucket-brigade to get the larger suitcases aboard. We stepped up to start lining up bags and the chief coolie waved us off. “Sit down, sit down,” he commanded sternly. He and his two helpers took their red cloths from around their necks and wrapped their heads—now they were ready to work. They lined up the bags while we waited anxiously, peering down the track.

Rumbling and humming, the train arrived. We watched the engine glide past. The chief coolie hailed the engineer and gestured toward our group and the pile of luggage. His meaning was clear, “these American fools are going to get jammed up, be patient.” When the train eased to a halt with a steely whine, we were facing a second-class sitting car. The chief coolie gestured down the platform to where our car waited, the doors shut. We grabbed suitcases and ran as fast as we could, stopwatches ticking in our heads. We reached the first door and the woman at the head of the group fought to open it—it wouldn’t budge. The porters and those of us carrying bags ran to the next door on the car, which also resisted opening. Finally, Gary was able to muscle it open and the women struggled on. A couple of men climbed on and starting grabbing the bags the porters handed up. I wanted to help but in the press around the door I quickly worked out that the most help I could offer was staying out of the way. When all the bags were on, the last of us climbed on. I don’t know exactly when the train started moving but by the time I was able to push in far enough to get my backpack out of the doorway, we were in motion and a conductor was urging me further in so he could close the door.

Now we found ourselves with a new problem. We were on the wrong car. Ours was one more down, and further, the luggage was stacked in the passageway between us and our goal. The porter and the conductor got more and more irritated with us as we tried to sort ourselves out and move the bags down the narrow passage, between the cars, and into whatever storage space we could find. It was another fifteen minutes before I was able to throw my backpack up to my third tier berth and scramble up to fully appreciate my surroundings. It was air conditioned, and that was good. It was cramped and not very private, though at least all six people in our section were members of our group. There was no window I could see out of, and no way to sit up straight, so I surrendered to circumstances and let the train rock me to sleep.

Despite a paltry pillow, scratchy, odorous blanket, and extremely limited space, I only recall waking up once in the night. Before I knew it I was being poked awake because we were only half an hour from Madurai. I went to the bathroom, which is to say I went to the small closet where you can relieve yourself down a pipe onto the tracks below, and returned to sit with my fellows. We struck up a conversation with the porter who was collecting and folding the sheets and blankets. He was a student at American University in Madurai who planned to earn an MBA and work in the tourist industry. He knew our hotel and said it was nice, but not “star class.” This young man who was practicing his English, learning French and had big ambitions, was doing a weekend job that once would have been solely the life-long work of men from the Sudra castes. It was an encouraging example of modern India. Isaac Newton (yes that was his name, and yes he knew of the famous scientist but did not enjoy science) was right about our hotel. It is comfortable, has good food, and an air conditioned bar I plan to visit later. My only complaint, as I sit and type at my hotel room desk, is that we have no wifi or internet access. I won’t be able to post this story any time in the foreseeable future, and that is not “star class.”