Agra(ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!), Part I (retrodated to Feb 13, 2012)
I am once again hurtling through the darkness in a taxi in the in-between hours of the night, headed for some place I don't know. Only this time it's with a driver Makyil has ridden with before, and I know how much I'm supposed to pay. Hindi music is blasting on the radio at 4:30am, and I even feel secure enough to let my eyes rest closed for moments at a time.
The very short night was made shorter by some pre-travel insomnia, and also late night tea drinking. Still, I might have managed about 45 minutes of actual sleeping. We'll see how this day goes.
Passing an entire community sleeping under a bridge, we reach the Nizamuddin train station in no time. I have to walk a bit to reach the entry way. If I had never seen MT, I might have been shocked by the poverty, but by now, the random garbage fires, the corresponding fumes, the haggard looking faces of the people living here, are things I'm able to walk straight through. Travelers are getting dropped off left and right, big bags and burlap sacs everywhere.
I enter the station. I am the only non-Indian I can see. No time for nerves. It is 5:45am, still far from dawn. I find the platform, then the section (2nd class - thought I'd go the middle way before trying anything fancier, or ghetto-ier). There is a printout with tiny font showing the names and seat numbers o passengers.
Miraculously, I locate my ticket number in a few seconds, and board the car. As soon as I enter, a flood of familiarity washes over me. this trip should be entitled 'Sen rediscovers China in India'.
Instant flashes of memories I haven't accessed in decades are brought to the front of my brain. The smell of the carriage, the layout of the bunk beds, the dinginess of the window curtains all make me wonder for a second if I've somehow walked into a living souvenir.
I have had one good experience on trains in china, and plenty of bad ones. I can still recall the feeling of sleeping with my mom on one of he top bunks in the heat of summer, on an overnight ride. I was so stifled by the heat, and also being completely mashed up against the wall, that I'd press my legs up against the length of the wall in order to disperse my heat, and absorb the coolness of the wall.
Another time, we had a top bunk in a triple bunker, but shared with a bunch of smokers. At that time smoking was permitted on cars. I took a nap, and sometime while I was sleeping, the smokers lit up in the car, and all the smoke rose to the top bunk where I was. I woke up completely nauseous, and only barely made it to the sink in the very much un-managed washroom before I lost my cookies.
These were the flashbacks that passed through my mind as I looked for my seat. I am not permitting any internal space for the recreation of undesirable experiences. I find my bunker, dingy, grimy, and pretty much in all ways identical to the bunker of my memories, and get comfortable. Semi-clean sheets, pillow, and blanket are provided, so I lay everything down, take off my shoes, and fill up my thermos with chai from the passing vendor. it's time to make some new memories.
***
The ticket inspector comes by, and it seems I'm in the worn seat (I've accidentally upgraded myself, it seems). But the car is pretty vacant, so he allows me to stay where I am. As I absorb the setting, I laugh at myself for holding onto a slim hope that there might be wifi on the train. You can laugh at me too!
***
It is 6:30am, and still dark. I will be in Agra by 9:30am. Jaipur tonight, and maybe also tomorrow, and then we'll see.
I am struck with the realization that I am once again on my own, to create whatever the heck I want for myself. I'm feeling quite cautious at the moment, but whatever comes my way will be an adventure to digest.
***
Dawn breaks, and the air of the country landscape is a dirty yellow gray. At first I held to the hope that it might be just the foggiest part of the morning, but it is now unmistakable as pure smog. Garbage covers the sides of the rail tracks. Murders of crows flock on telephone pole wires as they dive into the garbage. There are crops growing in this air. We speed past mud huts with garbage fires burning outside, and right beside them, cars plugging up a small village street.
I can barely see the trees in the distance. A neon orange sun burns behind the toxic atmosphere. Ever wonder what it might look like on Venus, the gaseous planet?
It seems Fafa was right when he said that Delhi is not even the most polluted of places in India.
As we pass through the endless kilometers of ruined air and landscape, I can't stop tears from welling up and spilling out. I think about the analogous trip on ViaRail from Montreal to Toronto; the pristine greenery along the side of the tracks, and am struck by the possibility that this is what India looked like hundreds of years ago. And that this could happen to us too.
What went wrong here along the way? We really fucked this one up for ourselves. There is truly nothing like seeing it for yourself that can teach you what environmental destruction feels like.
What is incredible is that in all of this, lines of trees are still growing, maybe even thriving, as they process the disgusting air and churn out oxygen in the place of carbon dioxide.
It makes me really consider the concept of what the world without us (or a lot fewer of us) would look like. Is there even any chance of recovery from this? How can we reclaim custodianship of the place we live?