2nd Class Passenger

I had promised Isaac strictly first-class train travel. Unfortunately, there are times when there is no fast, air-conditioned, reserved-seating way to get from where you are to where you’d like to be. There is only second class passenger.

Our first such train ride, we embarked with a minimum of pushing, serendipitously landing in the reserved car, where we were able to buy preferential seats from the conductor. Our two hours on board passed uneventfully, the stubby ceiling fans twirling in their iron cages, the green fields flashing by the window. Still, we appreciated the commotion that the loading and unloading of passengers inevitably entailed, so ten minutes before our stop, we gathered our belongings and stood by the middle exit.

As the train halted, we realized that this exit led not out to the station platform, but down six feet into the next track. The next logical option, the door opposite, was locked. And so we rushed towards a door at the far end of the car, but not before a group of old men and women had wedged themselves between us and the outside. They stood, immovable, intractable, as first we, then the conductor, then the other passengers reasoned, pleaded, demanded that we be let through. But the old ones had made it on board and so fulfilled their duty: how, or if, Isaac, Ben, and I were to get off the train was irrelevant.

They were armed with obstinacy; we had luggage. At first our bags were a liability; already my arms had grown shaky from holding my wheely bag overhead and it had bounced down onto a few bald heads, as well as my own. But once we were properly panicked, we lost our timidity. Isaac went first, holding his green Eagle Creek backpack in front of his chest and bulldozing a temporary clearing. Ben and I shoved our way through in his wake, striking out with our Cordura Nylon ammunition, jumping off as the train started to pull away from the station. So much for respecting the elderly, but I felt no remorse: I took home some bruises of my own.

By our second train ride, leaving Gokarna, we thought we knew the system: find out where the reserved car will stop, get on, buy yourself a seat,and claim a functional exit well in advance. Smugly (those naive Westerners waiting at the opposite end of the platform!), we staked out our position for the reserved car, and when the train pulled into the station, confidently stepped aboard. Into an unreserved car. There was no space to sit; there was no space to stand. There was no space anywhere except up.

Luckily we were invited onto the luggage rack. We spent the next five hours nestled in other people's belongings, first with our knees hugged to our chest and then, as the bags of sweets and boxes of electronics dwindled, with our legs stretched out over the passengers below. Zameer, our saviour, was a university student travelling back from his sister's house in Goa. He rode with us most of the way, during which time Isaac explained why we were childless, why Americans stick their mother and fathers in nursing homes, why we live in a holographic universe--the usual thing. This time, we detrained without a hitch.

By our third train ride, we were able to do it all--get on, sit down, and get off--but of course by the third train ride, Isaac wouldn't accept anything less than sleeper class AC.