Riding the Rails, Part II

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  Lucknow, India
Monday, September 24, 2007

I'm now in Lucknow where I'll be living and working for the next 9 months.  I arrived last Monday morning, and every one of the last 6 days has been an adventure.  Since it's been a while since I've written, and a lot has happened in the last 7 days, I need to backtrack a bit to describe my journey to Lucknow.

Last Sunday, we all woke up bright and early, said goodbye to the staff at Dev Dar Woods (our guest house in Landour), and piled into taxis to make the windy descent down the mountain to the train station in Dehra Dun.  It wasn't easy for me to leave the beautiful scenery and cool mountain climate of Landour, but Lucknow is not that far away and hopefully I'll be able to make it back for a weekend getaway.

The 17 of us, trooping through the Dehra Dun train station with our huge backpacks and suitcases, made quite a scene.  After asking a few people, we located the platform for our train back to Delhi.  This time we were in a sleeper coach with beds and berths instead of seats and aisles.  Each birth had 6 beds in a bunk bed arrangement, with people on the top bunk having to step on the lower people's beds to hoist themselves up.  Three friends and I found our beds and hoped that the two unoccupied beds in our berth would remain that way to give us room to spread out.

My friend Leah bought an Indian newspaper to read on the train, and she pointed out to us the odd and amusing matrimonial section, in which parents post announcements about their children in hopes of finding a suitable husband or wife for them.  The eligible bachelors and bachelorette announcements were divided by caste, religion and geographic area, so people can look for mates for their children based on many different criteria.  Some of the announcements were absolutely hilarious, and I wish I had clipped some out so I could remember them word-for-word.   I suspect that many of these marriageable youths had no clue what their parents wrote about them.

Along the way, our train stopped and sat at random points along the railway at least 4 times.  I wasn't worried for myself, since my 10:00pm overnight train was the last one to leave, but some of the fellows were taking a train to Mumbai about 2 hours after we were originally expected to arrive, so I hoped that they wouldn't miss their train with all our delays.

We got into Delhi around 4:15pm, just in time for us to say quick goodbyes to the Mumbai group and let them catch their train.  Anna and Sunita met us at the train station.  After the Mumbai group went off, the rest of us took taxis to Anna's apartment to rest and wait for our staggered departures over the next few hours.    Anna bought food for all of us, which we devoured upon arrival.  We then transformed her apartment into an internet café, since she had wireless and we were all eager to do a last email check before our big journeys to our different parts of the country. 

Slowly people departed for their various trains and the group got smaller and smaller.  Even though I was excited to get to Lucknow and have more independence from the group, it was hard to see everyone leave and know that we probably wouldn't see each other until our mid-year retreat in January.

At around 8:30pm, taxis came to pick up the Gujurat group as well as me and Sharon to take us to our Lucknow train.  This was the part of the trip I was most uncertain about, since I have WAY too much luggage and had no idea how I'd be able to get it from the taxi to my platform and onto the train. 

We got to the train station and a big group of "coolies" (bag handlers) approached us to offer their help transporting our luggage.  I knew I needed help with my bags, but the price they were asking seemed way too high for me to accept their offer.  I tried again and again to bargain them down with the little Hindi I remembered.  They came down in price a little and because it seemed like we had no alternative, we accepted their offer. 

I don't think I've written about coolies before, but they are mostly all short, skinny men who look like they could never lift anything over 10 lbs.  They use rags that they tie in a circle on their head to balance the bags on top.  I still don't understand how they don't tip over with so much weight on their heads.  Anyway, one of the coolies hoisted one of my huge, heavy bags onto the other's head, and then proceeded to hoist my second huge bag on top of the first.  I could have sworn that the top bag would fall off the minute the man took a step, but somehow he managed to carry the bags balanced on his head all the way to our platform.  Luckily, though, we didn't have to go up or down any large staircases, or the bags definitely would have toppled.

We were almost an hour early, so the coolies dropped our bags onto the platform and promised to come back when the train arrived to help load the bags into the coach.  Sharon and I plopped down on our bags to wait.

A little before 10:00pm, the train pulled in and the coolies helped us lug the bags into our berth.   Sharon took the top bunk, and I took the lower one.  Because this was an overnight train, we were given sheets, a blanket and a pillow, and there were curtains along the edge of each bed that we could close to have our own private sleeping space.  I read for a bit and then dosed for the rest of the way.  The beds and berth arrangement were actually quite comfortable, and I realized that the on-the-train part of the journey was probably the easiest.
Our train pulled into the Lucknow Station early on Monday morning.  We waited for coolies to come onto the train and help us carry our bags.  When I stepped off of the train, the hot and humid air sent sweat dripping down my face, and I longed for the cool fog and mist that we had been treated to in Landour.

Before we left Delhi, Anna and Sunita had given us a sheet explaining that a staff member from our NGO would meet us at the train station to take us to the apartment.  We were instructed to wait by our coach for the staff member, who would be holding up a sign, or, if he didn't come, to wait for him at the UP Tourism desk.

We didn't see anyone with a sign when we got off the train, so Sharon stayed with the luggage while I went in search of the UP Tourism desk.  I tried to ask several different people where the Tourism desk would be, but most people I tried to ask didn't speak English, and the one person who did didn't seem to know about any UP Tourism desk at the station.  I was ready to tell Sharon that we should look for a phone to call the organization, but as I walked back over to our luggage, a man from the NGO named JK was standing with her.  The coolies helped us bring the luggage out to JK's van, and then we were off.  JK, we later learned, is the NGO's driver, and he doesn't speak any English.  However, I attempted to use pigeon-Hindi to make some chit-chat, asking him to tell us about the different parts of Lucknow we were passing on the way.  While it seemed like he understood my questions, I realized that I had no way to understand his answers, so I decided to observe the scenery from the window instead.

We pulled up to a nice, white house and a short, smiling Indian woman came out to greet us.  Sharon and I introduced ourselves, and I asked the woman her name.  First she said "Mrs. Landlady," but when I asked again she told me her first name.  JK helped us bring our bags upstairs to the first-floor apartment (In India, they call the bottom floor the "ground" floor, so one story up is called "first" floor).  The apartment was very nice and larger than I expected, with two rooms with lots of windows, ceiling fans (a necessity), a pretty balcony and terrace with potted plants, an attached bathroom, and a kitchen outside.  The shower, as I had been told, was a bucket shower (ie. No shower head), but I'd gotten somewhat used to this during orientation, and bucket showers are also much better for doing laundry! 

The apartment had two cots in it, but no other furniture.  The kitchen, however, was well-stocked with a two-burner stove and two boxes of pots, pans and dishes loaned from my NGO.  Most Indian kitchens don't have ovens, and all cooking is done on small counter-top stoves that hook up to a gas canister that must be replaced every so often.  I'll have to get used to the process for turning the stove on and off, but my landlady showed me how to do it and it seems pretty easy.

Before leaving, JK gave us his cell phone to call Paula, the NGO's administrative officer, who volunteered to meet us later to take us shopping for some preliminary essentials.  Paula told us that she'd allow us to settle in a bit and would come meet us at 12:30pm to go shopping.

Paula and JK picked us up at the apartment at around 1:00pm.  Paula is a very sweet middle-aged Indian woman and speaks perfect English!  She is also a wealth of information, and I know she'll be a great ally and resource for me in Lucknow!

Paula first took us to the Foreign Registry Office to get us registered as guests in Lucknow.  The whole process is very confusing, since we were originally told by Anna that we wouldn't be able to register since we have "Tourist" visas.  However, it was important for the NGO to do everything by the books, and so we sat in the FRO office as Paula discussed our situation with the woman in charge.  It turned out that we needed to fill out forms and give photographs of ourselves in order to be considered for registration, so we made a plan to return the following day with our paperwork ready.

Next, Paula took us to one of the big indoor shopping malls in Lucknow, called Sahara Ganj, to get lunch and buy some essentials.  It's funny to me that of all places for us to shop in Lucknow, this is where she took us.  I would have much rather have her take us to an open-air market, where we probably could have found the things we needed for very cheap.  However, I think that since Sharon and I are from the U.S., Paula assumed that we'd prefer to go to nice, air-conditioned stores that were more similar to what we have at home.  After having a bite to eat at one of the mall's food joints, we went into a big "department-like store" where I bought some cleaning supplies, sheets, a towel and two large buckets.  As I've come to learn, having a few good buckets is essential in India, since people use them for everything from showering to doing laundry.

After making our purchases at Sahara Ganj, we were taken to another of Lucknow's shopping malls, this one called Shopper's World, were Paula said there was an inexpensive supermarket.  I had not seen any supermarkets in India before this one, and probably because they are a "luxury" for the wealthy.  My suspicion seemed to be confirmed when we entered the market and saw the well-dressed shoppers who were buying their groceries there and the many imported products on the shelves.  Sharon and I decided not to buy that much at this market, hoping that we'd be able to get most of our groceries at a cheaper, open-air food market like we'd seen in Mussoorie and Delhi.

After shopping, JK dropped me, Sharon and Paula off at the SAHAYOG office.  Paula introduced us to some of the NGO's staff and showed us around the office.  All the staff members were extremely warm and friendly, and many of them spoke English.  The office was its own one-story building, with about 8-10 rooms spread throughout.  I was happy to find that there were plenty of fans at the office, and even some A/C units that I guessed were used when it got too hot to work.  We had a quick cup of tea with Paula, and then were taken back to our apartment to settle in for our first night in Lucknow.

More to come on my first week's adventures in Lucknow...

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