India train ride experience from Jay

Chapter 1
Eighteen Inches of Middle Bunk

I’m fifty-seven years old, what the heck am I doing here? It’s about 3:00 a.m. and I am lying here on eighteen inches of middle bunk of a three-tiered sleeper on the night train to Lucknow. I know, I know. I am the one who decided to take this trip; I knew it would entail some deprivation since I am a coddled, comfortable woman from the USA – where, I bet, the trains have a little moving room and maybe, oh I don’t know, room for luggage. Okay, I know we are a group of Americans on a ten day trip to India and we are carrying enough luggage to make people think we are staying for a year. Next time I am told to “Pack light,” I will know that it doesn’t mean to use the suitcase one size smaller than the big one, the backpack with wheels, and the duffle bag. I will know it means backpack and maybe a fanny pack, that’s it. But it’s too late now, here on the train to Lucknow after six interminable hours of rocking along the track, stopping every thirty minutes or so to take on more passengers. Do the people in this country mind traveling in the middle of the night? What’s wrong with early morning departures? At least then I could look at the country side. Are they trying to hide something?
Maybe if I lay on my back for a while, put someone’s camera case under my knees for a while and this blue bag nearer to my side and scoot up a little on my backpack, which by the way is quite hard. If I had only known what it meant to ride a night train in India I would have packed it with underwear and tee-shirts instead of rocks or whatever I’ve got in there. No one told me to expect to use it as a pillow. Actually, to be fair, the train guy gave me a pillow. At home it would be in a doll’s bed, but here I am expected to sleep on it. I won’t complain though, it does soften the backpack somewhat.
I sound really spoiled don’t I. That’s what six hours in the middle bunk of a sleeper car in India will do to you. Make you realize what luxury really is: a real bed and a fluffy pillow and room to actually turn over. If I turn over here, will the bunk above me, which my bunk is strapped to, fall? Will Janie and I collapse onto that poor woman, a total stranger, so blissfully snoring right below me. Is everyone on this train asleep except me? No one else is moving; why can’t I stay still. Now my back hurts and I have to turn onto my side again, readjust the camera case and the blue mystery bag (It had better belong to someone, someone grateful, in our group!) and the tiny pillow and the hard backpack and try once more. Why didn’t I take one of Karen’s magic sleeping pills? She’s on the top bunk and snoozing away, oblivious to the limited size of the bunk. Oh, now I see why. She doesn’t have extra luggage on her cot! How did she get away with that? Why is she so special? Wait, calm down. She is on the top and I don’t want to trade. I know I couldn’t climb down as gracefully as I bet she can. Besides, it’s way too early in the trip to start turning on one another. I just need to sleep.
Okay, think about other things, like what do I have to be thankful for? It is dark. It is quiet, not even the baby in the next berth is crying, bless his little heart. I have a sheet between me and the plastic of the bunk, even if it is getting wadded up around my knees with all my tossing and turning. That’s my fault; I can’t count it as a negative. I should have tried harder to lose those excess pounds before I came on this trip. Oops, getting negative again, stick to the plus side of the column – sheet, blanket, dark, quiet, little pillow – to half the world, this is luxury so I’ll just lie here and sing songs in my head. That’s odd – I only know the first verse of every hymn I can think of. Why is that? I know we sang three verses every Sunday so why can’t I remember more than one? One more thing to put on my list of things to do in my retirement years. Boy that’s getting to be one long list, good thing I retired early.
Back to my original question: What the heck am I doing here? I used to be a school teacher. For 27 years I worked with young people, encouraging them to read, to experience through books places and events they couldn’t experience otherwise. For a while I was a high school counselor where I pushed lethargic, apathetic teens to aspire to greater things, telling them that the world was a whole lot bigger than Prairie Lea, Texas. I always wanted to travel the world, though I don’t remember ever wanting to come to India. Now England and Scotland, that’s the place to go. So why am I here?