Train Station Blues

We were lucky enough to get a 2AC to Chittorgarh with a friendly newly-wed English couple… they’re on their first week of a year-long round-the-world trip! Frankly, I think six months would be my max. I know that travel would start to feel like a job…
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We had to wait at the Chittorgarh train station for a couple of hours. It was very hot, dusty, minutes passing slowly. Sitting there on the platform, we began to notice the tired parade of poverty… and we were suddenly a part of it. What is it about these Indian train stations. For the traveler, it’s a place of flux. You arrive from somewhere else. It brings you to the next place. There’s an atmosphere of mutability. For the homeless, this is the end of the road. Too many natty-haired, mucus-faced children… moon-eyed. To them, a white face means prosperity. They come to us, open-palmed and filthy, imploring with those eyes.

And the adults, too. We gave one woman ten rupees, and a smile instantly spread across her whole face. She walked away pronouncing some sort of thanks, and we watched her show the little note to her family. Ten rupees… that’s like 20 cents. A woman thrilled to get 20 cents…

Another woman came by, clutching a 2-year-old with no pants on. The baby was covered in her own snot, with that hard stare that you never see on the face of a western child. We gave her a zip-lock bag full of half-eaten cookies. She glowed with gratitude. Really, her face was beaming. She let the baby hold the packet and then brought it to her family huddled on the platform, where they started sharing the cookies and passing them around. I broke. I couldn’t stop crying under my sunglasses. Something shattered inside me.

I’ll never forget their faces. They will haunt me. The desperate, grasping look of the beggar; the broadening smile of gratitude. For ten rupees. For a bag of half-eaten cookies. For nothing nothing nothing.