"Stop crying now, ... or do you want me to smack you?"

The train was a half hour late.  By the time the "express" started moving, it was five minutes past ten at night. 

The three people across from me were already in their beds.  Next to me was a kid, perhaps about eight or ten years old.  And then her mom and dad.  They too had boarded the train at the same station and we were all settling into our seats, and were waiting for the ticket inspector. 

The kid and the mother were all decked up.  The kid asked for her book.  The father hemmed and hawed, and the mother opened up the bag and took the book out.  The kid seemed excited.  So excited that she merely held the book in her hand, and didn't bother to read it.

Soon the ticket inspector came by, and we were all clear to hit the bed.

The dad told the kid it was time for her to climb up to the top most berth.  The kid dragged herself, like the kids when they sing "so long, farewell" in The Sound of Music.

She took the book with her.  And that is when her problems began.

The dad told her it was way past her bedtime and that she had to put the book away.

It was sad to see the kid's reactions.  The excited, happy, joyful girl started crying.  Without big sounds.  Her shoulders started shaking and tears rolled down.

It is so bloody difficult to watch a kid cry.  And that too a young girl who only a minute earlier was such a radiant bundle.  But, parents need to do what parents need to do, I suppose.

The father sternly told her to stop crying.  She simply couldn't.  Which is when he issued an ultimatum:"Stop crying now, ... or do you want me to smack you?"

The mother tactfully whispered something to her daughter, and then asked her if she wanted to go to the bathroom before bed.  And off they went.

When they returned, the kid wasn't crying at all.  She was normal. All ok.  Kids are awesome that way.

She climbed up to the berth where her father had already done up the bed.  She lay down.

Meanwhile, we put up the middle berth where the mother was to sleep.  I got my stuff organized in the lower berth.

The kid called her father and said in English, "a cockroach is here."

"Not roaches again" I thought to myself.

But, she didn't cry about it.  Now, that is one brave girl!

I almost gave berth during a train ride :)

I reached the railway station at Lucknow a couple of minutes before 5:00 in the morning.  Yep, that early in the day, in order to board the train to New Delhi.

No sign of the train--the Gomti Express, which departs from Lucknow.  I double-checked the board, and I was at the correct platform after all.

I wasn't sure whom to ask either, given that I was in an alien territory. 

I walked up and down the platform, and spotted a young guy of college-going age and, perhaps, his father.  "Gomti Express platform ...?" I asked them.  They nodded yes.

Few more minutes later, the train slowly rolled in.  I entered the coach, and it was obvious that the guy sleeping all wrapped up was not a ticketed passenger.  Fortunately, my seat was across from him.

The paranoid person in me worried that I could be in the wrong coach.  So, stepped out to check for my name in the chart pasted on the outside of the coach.  There it was: "Sriram Khe."  Phew!

A guy about ten years younger than me, wearing a suit-jacket, entered the coupé.  And then a mother and daughter.  We were the four for that coupé, I thought, and wondered when the sleeping giant would be awakened.

It was time for the train to depart, but nothing happened.  Strangely, nobody else seemed to be perturbed by anything, unlike me! 

Finally, after a twenty-minute delay, the train gently moved. 

About five minutes away from the station, a ticket official, a turbaned-Sikh, came by and shook hard the Rip Van Winkle character who was snoring away.  The official asked for his ticket, and the guy seemed shocked that the train was moving, and moving quite fast.  He scampered, while the official and a few other passengers smiled away.  I wonder whatever happened to him.  Did he jump off the moving train, I know not.

Meanwhile, the daughter asked the official if there was a free lower berth for her mother, whose assignment was an upper berth. 

I offered my berth to the daughter for her mother to use.

"Thanks, but I don't want to disturb you."

I wondered if in the Indian cultural settings, I, with my bald and greying head and a grey beard, was also considered an "older" person. Age is relative to cultural contexts, I suppose.  In the US, sixty and seventy year-olds seem to rush around with a lot more energy than what I have. 

Or, was it because I so clearly come across as a foreigner?

The official worked out a solution for them.  I slept away for a long while.  In the berth that was above mine, the daughter slept even longer, almost until the very end.

As we neared New Delhi, the daughter gave me her business card and told me to contact her if I needed any help at all.  Now, that is wonderful hospitality and friendliness, right, especially to this stranger? 

I hope to meet more such friendly people in the couple more train rides that await me before this lengthy India visit comes to an end.

On the road in India

It is extremely difficult for me to relax while travelling in India. Car, taxi, autorickshaw, plane--it doesn't matter. It is too damn stressful. The only travel part I really enjoyed was the train ride from Kollam to Sengottai.

I can, therefore, easily imagine the autorickshaw accident, in the on-going "on the road to India" WSJ blog: