Song of India - III - Travel, Third Class

Traveling third class on the trains is one of the bet experiences in India. It was here I learned so much and really felt I’d seen the country. How can you know India without traveling third? It’s something not to be missed.

Everyone travels third from doctors and lawyers to beggars and thieves. It’s surprising how many educated people who speak English are in third. Besides being cheaper it’s safer, and there isn’t so much difference anyway except for being less crowded.

Nothing could be cheaper, for us. For two days you can travel 1,000 miles from south to north for 30 rupees or only $6. It’s practically free, and a whole new world. Everyone there is a life you’ve never seen before.

The trains are still English-style with classes I, II, and III. Each car is a separate compartment with its own doors and you can’t walk thru the train as here. Each car is a different class. There are also special cars for ladies only, with a lady’s head in a sari pictured by the door for those who can’t read. Here you may travel properly segregated with the women and children.

Inside there are long seats along one side of the aisle, and usually singles along the other. The seats face each other forming little compartments at one end, and with a barred window at the other. They are really more like long wooden benches but the high backs go all the way to the ceiling. Thus whole families and large groups of people sit facing each other in compartments after compartment. It is usually quite crowded.

Over the seats are huge luggage racks wide enough to hold the large trunks so often carried. In fact, the luggage racks are so wide that you can sleep on them, and there is a great competition for places to stretch out. Above them is yet another narrow rack near the ceiling for smaller parcels.

Each car has a bathroom at the end. It is the Indian style with places to put your feet on the sides, and a spigot with water for washing. There is also a basin. It can’t be said however that all the youngsters make it to the room. Life is too casual for that. And when the train gets crowded there are people standing or sitting in front of the doors, and it is hard to make your way among the boxes and luggage and people.

The whole of the train inside and out is painted a dun color, a nondescript shade more or less the same as the brownish soil, adding nothing and looking more dingy than anything else. But somehow it typified India.

My first experience was from Bombay east about 200 miles to the ancient
“cave-temples” of Ellora and Ajanta. I had already decided previously to travel third class, tho I had visions of it being crowded cattle-like cars jam-packed with humanity. I thought I could take it though. It could hardly be more crowded than ordinary travel in Japan where one usually expects to stand. It was not as bad as I expected.

I arrived at Victoria terminal before sunrise, for I like to travel during the daytime in order to see the countryside. I didn’t want to miss anything of India. It was not such a large station for a big city, and easy to find your way around. The trains were all lined up on parallel tracks on ground level (no overheads) and you merely walked along in front of the engines until you found your train – the simplest of any station I've ever seen.

I purposely came early in order to get a seat for the long journey and was not the first to arrive. It was here I discovered that the trains had classes and compartments, and after walking around decided to get into the ladies third. It was only a small compartment at the end of a car, but with its own entrances from the side. Inside were several ladies, all rather large, and dressed in saris. They had taken up quite a bit of room already with their plentiful luggage so typical of India, but they gave me a seat by the window for which I was grateful as I wanted to watch the countryside.

Though we were all early the train did not move at the appointed time. How different from Japan! This was only the beginning of the casual pace. At stations the trains often stopped thirty minutes or more, to be sure and give everyone plenty of time to eat and get settled with all their luggage. Thus even a trip of 200 miles took all day. Each journey is quite an affair. The maximum speed of the belching engine is about 50 mph, and along with the station breaks which occurred every hour or so, the “express speed” averages about 30mph. Even so, it is not tiring because it is so fascinating.

Since the train didn’t start there was plenty of time to watch the bustle on the station platform. Ducks and chickens cackled in huge, round, woven lidded baskets. Porters or bearers hurried about with huge loads on their heads. They wore long red shirts over Indian-style white draped pants and red turbans wrapped around their heads for carrying the heavy weights. One man can carry a trunk so heavy that it takes two to lift it up, and on top of it yet a heavy bedroll. It’s amazing the weight they can carry.

Inside we sat facing each other on the straight-backed benches. I was surprised to find that three of the ladies could speak some English, and that they weren’t poor at all. It was the beginning of my education in third. Tho we spoke to each other a little, I spent most of my time looking out the window. What did I see that first trip?

A quick transition from city to country. In a few minutes not a sign of a big city anywhere, but huts and shacks set directly on the grass and rocks by the railroad tracks, as if someone had picked them up and set them down on the open countryside. Palm trees amid the huts and dark rusty tin of the shacks – an ironic gesture, an association we would never think of in the West – but how often I saw palm trees and slums in India. The train rolled along: an impression of rags, and a breakfast fire in a tin can. More land…straw and tin huts tucked away among the hills everywhere. Could it be that a great city is only minutes away? You would never believe it – a drop of twentieth century in this sea of ancientness. Surely tourists only in Bombay or the big cities would miss India entirely!

The land is rather flat and rocky, covered with grass and not good for crops. Rough and flat with mountains in the distance. Then long stretches of spongy, swampy marsh land with long, glistening-wet dark green grasses. How clean and fresh after Bombay – fresh from the rain. Pools of water… muddy…clear. Everything green, black, wet, with a wetness I never saw again, for it was late September after the rainy season, and from now on it grew only drier and drier.

Long stretches of emptiness…only plains. How good it felt to stretch out into space after the eternal crowdedness of Japan – like our own West, something the Japanese people will never know, here again.

Then one of the most beautiful sights in India- the sun gleaming on the delicate, feathery, platinum-colored kash grass. Beautiful tall platinum plumes along the edge of the marsh gleaming in the early morning light. The central plain is flat and monotonous but the surprise of the delicate, feathery kasha grass with its sun-drenched color gives a fairy like lightness to the drabness of the land. The great beauty of the grasses and wet green, and the shacks – somehow you could cry.

The sun has risen and four blue streaks literally radiate from behind a cloud. My god, even the sun was primitive today! Perhaps ancient people actually saw the streaks they drew radiating from the sun, (though everywhere it’s drawn the same). But there is was, in reality. What a shock to see a primitive symbol in the sky. Truly it was an ancient land.

Primitive life begins to appear in the countryside. Tiny elf-like figures with burlap capes peaked over their foreheads, rounding their faces and then swooping to the ground – like a long gunny sack split on one side and put over the head – complete with long stick. Yes, they are shepherds, and there are cows and goats. In the distance they look like tiny dark gothic window-shaped gunnysacks with sticks, posed here and there. The landscape becomes very quaint with its slightly worn and earthy elves.

There are many goats. One of the most delightful things is the black and black and white goats. They are so darling. Then a sudden rock…two cows…a goat silhouetted on a low brick wall…a lovely inlet from the sea with boats high and dry by the houses at low tide. Two small boats are in the river with a net stretched between them, seining. More grasses, marshes, cows – one black as the rock on which it stands in the river.

Always the landscape is dark green spots on a light background – trees standing out singly on the light green grasses. This spotty landscape is characteristic of central India and they call it forest or jungle tho the trees stand quite separate and apart from each other, quite different from our idea of a jungle, and it is surprising to learn that tigers live here, and indeed over most of the country among these sparse trees.

Then there are mountains in the background and a river in the foreground with scattered houses and fields in between. The land is plowed here and there aimlessly in small patches – not every inch plowed to the foundation of the houses as in Japan – only here and there, then space again. Nor are the furrows straight or the edges of the fields clear, but wandering hazily here and there – another indication of the casual nature of the people. Indeed, the government has been trying to teach them to plant paddy (rice) in straight rows as do the Japanese, for higher yield, but it is not in their nature.

More straw and tin huts tucked among the hills – still the refuse of Bombay so far away. A collection of tents, among which a new tan one stands out strikingly from among the dingy lot. So here a tent, if new, is enough to set you apart from your neighbors – nothing so complicated as a new car.

The villages are such a strange assortment of huts and houses and buildings – mud and bricks and stone, tiles, and straw. Even white Moslem domes sticking up here and there. And many walls, of dark grey clay, or ancient brick, or the black rock everywhere in the countryside. Everything was made from the natural materials at hand. Even the railroad bed was made from the dark rock. A few houses were actually set in rows, the first time I had seen any conscious pattern outside the city.

Strangest of all is to see the white domes unexpectedly sticking up from the ground every so often, in a village, or apparently isolated in the countryside. Only the dome sticking up from the earth, perhaps something half-buried – unadvertised monuments that would be quite an attraction in our country but here nothing special, not even anything to be mentioned. Not only domes, but crumbling old walls, and occasionally an arch standing by itself, and low stones in rectangular shapes just waiting to be excavated if they weren’t so numerous. Bits of history rising from the ground: shepherds and towns and new life living amongst the ruins of centuries before. How I love it – so fascinating to the imagination. America is too new. Would we think differently if there were old remains to remind us of life before? But here they stand on an old stone wall and watch the goats, and it is only the same stone wall they have seen since their childhood.

Thus the countryside rolled on, at a leisurely pace. Every so often we stopped in the middle of nowhere and a few waiting faces grimacing with dust and heat and the weight of baggage, scanned the windows and got on. The English speaking ladies got down, but surprisingly enough another got on. She was rather young and turned out to be a representative’s daughter. We talked a great deal during the trip and she told me many interesting things.

What was this third class full of educated ladies? Perhaps the poor couldn’t travel at all. I discovered many people travel third as it’s safer. Occasionally people get robbed and even killed for their money in first. First class cars are often rather empty and dangerous, whereas third is almost always filled. Thus they travel third for safety. Only once did anything happen to me traveling. It was in South India and I was sleeping in ladies third. I awoke to fine someone taking my suitcase down from the rack above. But when I awoke he fled. I found I was alone in the car, and that the other ladies had gotten down while I slept. I hurriedly moved to another car full of people.

It seemed strange to be in a land where traveling was not entirely safe, like our old stagecoach days in America – a kind of danger absent in our travel today. It gave it a certain flavor. “Watch your boxes,” people would say. “Even at night we wake up every so often and take a look at them.” The windows were barred the same as all the houses except here there were horizontal metal bars instead of vertical.

Most cars had four doors, two at either end. Signs warned to keep them locked from the inside at night but often no one bothered, even in the ladies car where they sat around talking or sleeping. As the train started up after each station, beggars and shiftless characters, sometimes thieves, would come into the car and stand in the open doorways at the end. The train started so slowly that it was easy for them to jump on, and they usually came from the side away from the platform where train inspectors looking for such people, (tho not too hard) would not see them. But the trains are so slow you can jump on a long way after each station.

I had assumed that after the train had gained speed things were settled, however, as each car or compartment was separate from the others. I’ll never forget the first time, after we had been going for some time, I happened to look up and a hideous face appeared in the open doorway as we were traveling along – a beggar with rolled-up smeary eye and limbs all twisted. How shocked I was to see that face from nowhere! It was then I learned it was possible to swing along from car to car by rods along the outside of the cars, even if they were moving, and used alike by ticket inspectors, peanut hawkers, tramps, and beggars. So you never knew who might appear at any time, even in the ladies’ compartment.

But strangest of all was the fact that nobody paid any attention to this character except me. I thought it was weird. By now I was traveling on a different train, and this third class was quite different – more like I had expected to begin with. Inside the car was nothing but three long benches, one on either side along the windows and another wider one in the middle divided by a back rest in the center with people facing either way. It was an awful, old-type car that there were not too many more of, thank god. It did seem like a cattle car, especially as the passengers were now entirely different, riding only a few stops between villages in the country. They got on barefoot and dirty, with grimy stringy hair, clutching bulging bags of belongings. Eyes peered from sunken, wrinkled faces looking for places to put their bags. They were bedraggled, colored girls, often without blouses, and some had jeweled rings in their noses. In this setting the gruesome face appeared, and I was glad that the other girl was with me or I would have felt in a strange storybook indeed.

Then two rough-looking men jumped on and stood hunched by the door, casting their eyes over us now and then. What were they up to? This was the ladies compartment. I was indignant. “They are robbers,” she told me. “They come and take the ladies necklaces and jewelry. But now you are here and they are afraid.” Afraid of me! That was interesting. Then it was rather mutual as I kept my eye on them, ready to push them out the door or something if it came to that. We eyed each other from a distance, but they stayed where they were and came no closer, getting off several stops later.

But the women amazed me even more. Such a pensive lot they were. I think if someone took a necklace from their neck they would only sit there. In fact I wondered if they would resist a man whatever he might do. Such passiveness I had never seen before – something deep and strange in India’s women.

Soon we arrived at Aurangabad, near Ellora, and I got down after my first ride. It had been interesting and full of new experiences.

Not far from the station was the rest house where I stayed. It was all new of fresh cement, with large rooms off a corridor with swinging doors. The rooms had only a cot in them. Meals were also served and a man servant made dinner for me with chapattis and curry and rice. It was quite good.

I was still somewhat leery about food. For water I had a plastic bottle in which I put an army halizone tablet to purify it. It was a tip that worked quite well, and whenever I filled the bottle I put in the tablet. Thus water was taken care of.

Actually you could travel without it as everywhere, even in the smallest hamlet, there is tea. Not only is the water boiled for tea but the milk which is added is always boiled also. This is one health measure which is practical everywhere. Thus you may safely drink the tea. And tea is served at all the stations on the train, so it is easy to get by.

But he served sweet curds for dinner. Should I eat them or not? Curds are made from milk and either sour or sweet, and very delicious. My desire got the best of me and I ate the curds happily, with no ill effects. Thus gradually does one come to eat what is sold at the stations and on the streets, and before I left India I didn’t worry about the water either and stopped using the tablets without any trouble.

There are two theories of travel in foreign lands – one is to drink and eat everything and thus become immune, and the other is to be cautious. Some people become sick despite all precautions, and some stay well even drinking the muddiest water, so you never can tell. Two brothers followed the first way and one stayed well and the other did not, so you can’t tell. I never had any trouble, except for some diarrhea which is partly caused by the lack of meats, so I was lucky.

The next day I saw the cave temples at Ellora. They really weren’t caves at all, but rather large rooms quarried out of a hill of solid rock. Most of them were rectangular Buddhist rooms or halls with pillars of solid stone. In the back was a smaller room with a large Buddha carved of stone. All had been hewn out by the monks almost 2,000 years ago, and then for some reason whether purposefully or not, been abandoned and not rediscovered until about 100 years ago.

Besides these cave rooms there is a Hindu temple carved of solid rock, the largest monoliths temple in the world. It is about three stories high and contains many rooms. Besides the walls of stone are decorative carvings of the gods along the whole exterior. They are delicately finished and all of stone. It is called Kailasa.

Besides the cave temples at Ellora are similar ones at Aurangabad nearby. These caves are less publicized and visited, but equally worthy of attention. However I could only stay one day since I wanted to be at Sevagram, Gandhi’s ashram, in time for his birthday in October. Thus I only had a few days in which to see the caves.

The next stop was Ajanta which has not only caves, but frescoes on the walls – very ancient and beautiful paintings. From Aurangabad to Ajanta was easiest to go by bus, so I took my first long bus ride.

In Bombay the city buses are double decker, red or green, and quite new. People enter and leave at the rear, where small steps wind up to the top. When it gets crowded many men hang on the back platform, in spite of a little sign which says “Made for 40 seated and 10 standing persons”, a rule apparently held over from the British, for it is rather ludicrous in the Orient. Sometimes a bus will pass you by with only a few people standing in the center. Full! In Japan there is always room for one more, and the rule is standing, anyway, often so packed you can hardly wiggle, and it is impossible to fall down. They sway and jolt in one mass. Full! Such an un-Oriental design. The difference in thought between the two cultures is quite striking – not “so much for each person”, but, “make do with what is”. I wondered why they kept the rule from the British, but in India rules are not important, and often crowds of men hung on the rear. They particularly liked to run and jump on the bus. Sometimes they will even wait till it has started, just for the fun of running and catching on. The least little handhold and place for one toe is enough. Likewise they like to jump off while it is still moving.

Indian buses have ladies’ seats too. They are usually in front. A man may sit there but if a lady comes, or even a little girl, he must get up. Not only do they like their ladies seated, but often insist on it, not starting the bus if she is standing. Only in the biggest cities did I occasionally see a lady standing in the aisle. It seemed strange after Japan where one takes standing for granted, and mothers stand and let the children sit. But here the philosophy is quite different, and the rule is to find some corner of a seat, however tiny, for each one. If many women get on they all move over and compress themselves until all are half-seated or half-standing in the space marked “ladies”. Sometimes it would be much more comfortable to stand in the aisle, but they worry until all are seated. Why is the custom so different here? I think it is due to the great heat, and also a certain weakness. Whether from diet or other reasons, after a woman has had several children she does seem rather weak and really needs to sit. So sitting is the rule. The first thing they say when you enter any office on business is, “Please take your seat.” The affairs of India are conducted sitting down. And one of the pleasures is being a lady – even more so with the usual male escort to look after you.

But our country bus was old and rather beaten from the bumpy country roads. There were classes here too, with a few seats up front reserved for first. Then the rest of the bus was for everyone else, with all their bags and boxes. It was interesting to watch the passengers, the different kinds of dress, and to try to make out Muslim hats from Hindu ones. At last I discovered it was material and not so much color or shape (tho some difference). The Muslim hats are of thick fur, but almost the same shape as the Hindu ones (shaped like Nehru’s). At first I couldn’t tell which was which, and seeing hats of different colors I asked a gentleman who was who. “We are all Hindus,” he said, leaving me more puzzled than before.

We rumbled and bumped along, sometimes stopping at places that hardly looked like villages at all, the sometimes bigger than they seemed – just a few mud houses on the stretching plains. The local people milled around the bus. In India the people never look as if they seem to be doing anything in particular. No one is every “busy”. The passengers unload for a few minutes, though there is no bathroom around. It’s no problem for the men and children who go by the road, but for the women, it’s more of the problems of traveling by bus.

Such funny things they bring with them into the bus – all kinds of metal cans and-boxes, and gunny bags of burlap, and tiered metal food carriers, called Tiffin-carriers. Then the problem of wedging these things in the luggage rack, or between people or under their feet. It is quite a problem getting in and out because of all the things, this in spite of the fact that there is a huge luggage carrier on top of the bus for bedding and big boxes or trunks. This luggage carrier is covered over with canvas when it rains. I’ll never forget once when the bus was already full, every seat taken and luggage in the aisles, a man straining to roll a huge rubber tire inside the back door – but the unanimous shouts and gestures of the men finally dissuaded him and he put it up above.

Some of the towns looked Biblish, the men with long uncut hair, beards, bare feet, and mud houses sometimes with an outside stairway rising to the roof. Other towns looked medieval, ancient, surrounded by walls, with domes and the remains of walls sticking up out of the ground here and there, overgrown with grass, and goats and cows grazing on them. How exciting the ruins lying everywhere, centuries old. It set the atmosphere for the ancient cave temples of Ellora and Ajanta. I wanted to get down and explore all day, but had to go on if I wanted to be at Sevagram for Gandhi’s birthday. What exciting ruins and how they took them for granted – the grazing and peaceful daily life laying in the sunshine over these dark, buried ruins.

The caves at Ajanta were even more extensive and prepared for tourists. These rooms extended in horseshoe shape high up around a hillside. They likewise had been hewn out of stone. Only recently had they been rediscovered and dug out from the grass and earth covering them. There are over twenty caves, with guides to show groups of tourists thru. The caves are equipped with large mobile lamps for viewing the paintings, and for a few extra rupees a group of people may hire a guide who carries the lamp from picture to picture, explaining them.

All the paintings at Ajanta are Buddhist. They are frescoes but made somewhat differently than those in Europe. They are made from vegetable dye, and wax and glue mixed with the wet plaster. The color is applied directly to the wet plaster and thus the frescoes are made.

In the caves government artists were busy making exact reproductions of the paintings, for naturally they would gradually crumble and deteriorate. One of the paintings, of a Bodhisattva holding a flower is one of the most famous paintings in the world. It is in cave number two.

During my stay at the caves I met a boy from Calcutta named Rabindranath. I dubbed him “he who laughs” because of his habitual joyousness and good nature. He too rode the bus from Ajanta to the train station after the tour.

On the way back it started to rain heavily, and what were the windows in the bus? A narrow canvas flap stretching the length of the bus on each side. After the flaps are unfurled no one can see but the driver, except we peek occasionally. As soon as the rain ends up go the flaps. What sparkling freshness! India looks beautiful, and we eagerly gulp in the passing view. A small boy sits astride a huge black water buffalo, joyfully singing and swinging his legs as it walks along. Rabindranath was filled with delight, and poked his head out the window and waved at him. How he laughed and was filled with joy. He caught the spirit perfectly of the little boy. His love of life was light and sparkling like wine and his joyousness lightened the sadness and solemnity of India. In laughter what freedom of spirit!

Another small boy running, running home over the hard earth. Home, it was his home, this dry earth, for here it had not rained. It was one of these patchy rains you can drive in and out of suddenly, such as we have in the West.

Another bus ride, from Mysore to Coti, Coimbatore is South India, the most beautiful ride I took in India. As in other countries the trains run in the valleys, but the bus goes into the hills. Here there were beautiful Blue Mountains and the road wound up and up amidst the ever changing scenery. So lush and fresh and green – not just pines but broad leafed trees and shrubs looking as strange in the mountains. The marvelous, cool heights and vast valleys below in the distance were wonderful.

There were also coffee and tea plants (bushes) in the mountains. As it happened, I was sitting by a young man who turned out to be the inspector for all these coffee plantations. The low, dark green covering in the open spaces here and there were coffee bushes, with a few “umbrella” palms here and there for shade. It is three years before they bear, but the bear for seventy years after that. In other places the spreading, dark green bushes were tea. The plantation inspector was interesting to talk to and knew the outdoors well. He also managed to get me a cup of coffee without sugar, at one of the bus stops. If he couldn’t do it no one could, but he managed. Usually the coffee, as the tea, comes already prepared.

But the thing I will always remember is when the bus stopped high up in the green mountains for water from a stream, and the first thing I knew the driver was handing all the ladies roses, which happened to be growing there. A real red rose from a bus driver in the mountains. I was blissfully happy. It was things like this that secured by deep love for India and bound my heart to her forever.

The hill station of Ooto was wonderful too, nestled high in the mountains. All afternoon I walked around this somewhat English town, round and round the mountain paths in the emerald greenery. But this is before my story, and the next ride I took was on the train from the Jalgaon station to Wardha, where I went to see Gandhi’s ashram. That night Rabindranath and his friend found a place for me to stay in one of the station rooms at the railroad station. It was quite fabulous. In it were two beds, dressers, rugs, davenport, mirrors, dividing partitions, complete bath with shower, etc. It was really extravagant, and I though of these few luxurious rooms, and the many lying on the station floor beneath, sleeping. It didn’t seem right.

I ate dinner with my two new friends, also at the station restaurant. It was good to be with my escorts, and they looked after me not only here, but also met me at the station in Calcutta, their home, and found a place in a hotel for me to stay there too. Women seldom travel alone in India, but if they do they can be sure that the men will take good care of them, see to their baggage, train, etc. Always you are a woman and the men will help you, as their duty and responsibility, especially if you are a guest in their land. They do this graciously and ask for nothing in return. You even feel the bearers and attendants are taking care of you. It is quite lovely, as you expect quite the reverse in a strange land – but always I felt cared for.

Here a man’s world and woman’s world are separate and different, and women too separate and different, not above or below, nor looked down upon, but different. Here you have no doubt you are a woman and don’t live in the man’s world, and it is good. Whatever kind of woman you are, old, young, modern, ancient, thin, fat, you are a woman. And women just as special, just as fully human beings as man.

Third class travel again, and how interesting and wonderful it was. I had come prepared, for everywhere you are supposed to carry your own bedding, even in hotels, Indian hotels. This accounts for the heavy bedrolls the people carry traveling. But I used something much lighter, an Army surplus khaki-colored sheet sewed up like a cocoon. If I could find a place on the luggage rack overhead, I slept there, and it was quite comfortable.

Besides that, all I carried was a small black leather suitcase, a large handbag with a shoulder strap, and a black corduroy handbag in which I carried my water bottle and food. Thus I traveled very light and could always easily carry all my things myself when I was walking or changing trains.

I took my own food on the train, little loaves of bread, and bananas. But gradually I started eating the Tiffin or snacks sold at the stations, like the rest of the people. Every time the train stops, station attendants roll their government approved carts along the platform selling food of all kinds, and men go hurrying by the windows, “Cha, Cha.” They come by selling oranges, bananas, chapattis, nuts, a kind of turnover with potatoes curry inside, and all kinds of snacks. Hands reach thru the barred windows, exchanging food and annas.

Nothing is wasted, nothing. Food is often served on leaves, either part of a slick palm, or smaller leaves “sewn” together with tiny pieces of straw into a round plate. It’s a wonderful idea. As soon as you finish eating and throw it out the window, crows light and pick off the grains of rice, and then a goat or cow comes along and eats the rest. What could be better!

“Chalee, Chalee,” along comes the tea vendor with his metal pot of tea and bucket of cups and saucers. But more often it is served in little orange colored unglazed crockery cups, and after they have finished their tea the people seem to enjoy crashing them on the tracks below. It is the only luxury or waste that I noticed in the whole country, and the people seem to enjoy their moment of devilment.

It was fun sitting among the people, talking to those who could speak English and watching the rest. We sat in the compartments eating and resting and always there was plenty to see. There were all kinds of people from landlords to peasant, scholars to beggars in third. Sometimes I rode in the ladies’ compartment but often I rode in general third to see the variety. In general third most of the ladies were with their families, but even in the ladies’ compartment they often had a husband riding in the next car, and he would bring them food at the station stops. I met many friends on the train, and often they would invite me to visit them.

Often beggars would get on at the station and squat huddled on the floor so as not to take up a seat since they didn’t have a ticket. Sometimes the ticket inspector would come and sometimes he wouldn’t, but they didn’t seem to bother them much. They crowded near the doors and along the aisles. Sometimes they had food and would eat with the rest of us, but often they had none. Sometimes I would give them bananas, and it would hurt you to see them save one. The future might not have even that.

At the station stops beggars came by the windows too. Never were you free of them. “Baksheesh, Baksheesh,” their plea. And at night the station floors are so covered with the sleeping bodies of the homeless that you can hardly make your way to the ticket windows. And since they sleep with their dhotis pulled over their faces sometimes you can’t tell which are men and which are women. Sometimes they set up housekeeping inside the station too, and even wall off little areas for their own use, complete with baggage and cooking pot.

At night on the trains as many as possible would sleep on the benches and luggage racks, and the rest would sleep on the floor. Sometimes they made up pallets but more often just stretched out on the floor. I saw beggar’s children and children of the well-to-do sleeping side by side on the floor, too, regardless of class distinction.

One story illustrates the country people of India and gives a picture of the land.

In the afternoon near Wardha, an old woman got on. She was all hunched over, tottering, clutching a cloth bundle. She had streaked grey hair, only half put up, and a disheveled sari with no blouse, and barefoot. She climbed up on the seat opposite me by the window and squatted down on it. I didn’t know if she were a beggar or not. She was alone and quite old.

By now I knew that some people did ride free, usually squatting on the floor so as not to take up seat space which was paid for. They seemed to get away with it: either the ticket inspector did not come or he would ignore them. But sometimes he would tell them to get off at the next stop (maybe as far as they were going anyhow), especially the thug-type of free-riding men. You could tell by their eyes and bearing which were the ones that wished you no good – sort of tense, usually standing by the door looking down the track – or the simple country people – sitting quietly on the floor alone or in groups, sort of staring at the floor patiently, sometimes with many bundles.

The train ground to a start. She kept her bag tight beside her and tho she sat still, her eyes darted here and there, unresting. She was not relaxed as the usual people. I wonder now if she was aware of anything around her. A couple of the men glanced at her but didn’t pay any attention.

Suddenly, I was shocked to see her at the feet of the next man on the bench. She was begging, pleading, in her old voice. There were tears in her eyes and she clasped her hands together not only touching her hand to her forehead as they do when asking for alms, (sign of humble, prayerful request), but actually hitting her hand again and again as if in agony or grief.

She was at the feet of a young, plumpish man, perhaps about 35, and he started talking to her but she wasn’t listening…only hitting her head over and over again, as if “Mercy, what shall I do?” She was so wrought up that she was completely unaware of anything around her. Then she sat on the floor, weeping. Finally she looked up at him again. He spoke to her gently in a firm, even voice that one might use with a hysterical child. He asked her a question. By now a few of the other men listened, curious, but let him handle her. Finally she quieted down some and seemed to comprehend and answer what he said. Then he put two rupees into her hand and she began crying afresh and touched her hand endlessly in gratitude.

Feeling he had been rather taxed by her long ordeal in front of him, I tried to get her up again on the seat across from me. Finally she became aware of me and moved over to my feet and gazed at me as a child – needing, pleading for it knows not what. I was embarrassed that she should sit so at my feet, as if I were a lord or maharajah with a subject at my feet. I coaxed her on the seat and finally she got up. Then I urged her to look out the window at the landscape and amazingly she finally did.

While she gazed he spoke to me in English. She was without food and money he told me. It had been difficult to get the story in her dialect, but evidently she had been living with her son’s family and they had thrown her out. Probably they could not support her and now she was going to another son’s house with only that tiny bundle – no money, no food. She could not read, had gotten on the first train that came along and didn’t have any idea whether it was the right one or not, or where it was going. With difficulty he had found where the son lived, and it turned out this train would pass the place but stop several stations beyond. So he had explained over and over to her where to get off, what to do, but whether she had really understood or not he didn’t know. He had been able to understand her but not well, as she spoke another language not his own. Yes, there were many cases like here – no place to go, to live….nothing, nothing.

He began reading his newspaper again, thoughtfully. By now I knew Indians lived with this sort of thing day and night, from childhood to death. And they never can get it out of their minds for a moment of freedom from pain, but lived with it quietly, patiently, day after year till their death, without hope of change. Never was India free of poverty, of pain.

I watched this old lady, wonderingly. To be cast from your own children’s home, to face the world blindly, not a penny, not even the haziest idea of maps or direction, not even able to read. Who knows if she had been ten miles from her house before? Imagine. And it was true. I tried to imagine being like her, in her position, but to have such a darkness in your mind about the world, to stand blankly, blindly in the sea of life and get on some big black machine coming by – that was hard to imagine.

She looked like a good woman, born in some village, marrying young, full of children; knowing only work, only movement without meaning, day in and day out. I think she had been a good mother, caring for her children every day – sick, tired, poor. And they had deserted her – but could even she blame them? Yes, she was looking out the window as I’d persuaded her, looking at the fields, trees, grass. Who knows if she had seen them before, even this close to her home? I was proud of her, losing herself in the scenery even in her precarious situation. It’s amazing how people can live, even richly, when life deserts them…only rolling along into nowhere, with nothing. I wondered at the vitality of people, able to live in spite of nothing.

At the next station I bought her some tea and bananas, something light after her ordeal. But she wanted only water and finally the water boy came along but she had no cup. I gave her the plastic one on my water bottle and told her to keep it and she was quite pleased. She ate one banana and thrust the others deep in her bundle. Even hungry she would save. How often I saw that.
A new man had gotten on at the station and was reading a paper, his child beside him. She watches awhile then smiled at the little girl. Yes, truly she was an amazing woman! Her own son deserts her after all her years of care, and in her destitution she can smile without bitterness at this little girl. I confess I marveled at her.

Finally what I dreaded happened – the ticket inspector came. She didn’t even know enough to hide or worry. She sat there openly. Closer and closer, ticket after ticket, but without so much as glancing, he passed her over. And no, it wasn’t oversight – he sat down among us and rested, as we were at the end of the car.

I cried. Tow, three hours of strain, of feeling so much for this old woman. Only beginning to get used to India. Then this man, the inspector, whose duty it was to make these people get off, did not so much as notice her, this scrawny woman hunched up on the seat. The beauty of his gesture was too much, and like the old lady, I wept. How I loved that ticket man I cannot tell you.

We were nearing Wardha now; this was Gandhi country, but tho I had looked, I could see no hints of it anywhere on the landscape. But in this man Gandhi was born for me again. Of a sudden I understood Gandhi and what he meant to the big helpless children of India. Like this man he as a father to his people. Yes, beloved bapu, the good father. In these men was the greatness of India.

On to IV - Sevagram, Gandhi Ashram