Mumbai is full of jarring sights.
This cat, calmly surveying his
streetcorner domain, has a hole
in his head. There's no inflammation,
but his skull is visible and the
dark area is an opening to his brain
casing. Probably an unfortunate
collision with a taxi...or a meat cleaver.
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11/13/05 – Sunday
The Foam should not have been surprised to find that first-class “1A” air-conditioned rail travel includes accommodations dissimilar to those in Western countries. But he was, anyway. The highest paid ticket did not result in a private cabin; either there is no such thing or the Source had other plans for the Foam. Two long padded benches served as daytime seating; two tiers of two berths each folded down for sleeping arrangements.
The Foam had the cabin to himself only until the second stop out of Lokmanya. When he returned from the toilet just after the train got under way again, he had a cabin mate who greeted with a smile and the observation, “Lucky you! Lucky you, and lucky me!”
The speaker was Mustafa J. Nakara, Deputy Manager for Tech Solutions at HPL Socomec, an Indo-French electrical hardware conglomerate. As in the US, “tech solutions” is a euphemism for sales and marketing. Mustafa has several regional direct sales reports (i.e., carbon-based life forms behaving as salespersons) and was on his way to Raipur (midway across the subcontinent) for management and team-building sessions aimed at improving Indian brand penetration.
Mustafa, his luggage and laptop occupied the lower berth opposite the Foam. Many hours of intermittent conversation ranged across a panoply of topics: religion (Mustafa is Muslim), business (especially outsourcing), the structure and condition of the Indian “unified” (extended) family vs. the Western, historical conflicts between various Indian subgroups in the context of caste, sect, culture and political orientation. Like many well-educated Indians the Foam met in Mumbai and Kolkata, Mustafa’s knowledge was by no means limited to his area of expertise (electrical engineering). He had strong, very tolerant positions on all social issues based on in-depth study and observation. Opinions were delivered without a trace of rancor but with considerable empathy and humor. When Raipur was reached at about 2PM the following day, the Foam was sorry to see him go.
The windowscape between conversations was unremittingly beautiful and pastoral; semi-tropical savannah with occasional jungle-covered hillocks. Whistle-stop rail stations had a ghostly quality, Raj-era track observation platforms long out of use. In fields an occasional platoon of monkeys could be seen in tactical movement from hayrick to hayrick.
As soon as Mustafa had alighted at Raipur, he advised the Foam that by the time the train reached Howrah, Kolkata, there would be four in the cabin. This was not to be, as two booked travelers mercifully did not show. However, Viresh Bujarati, who was slated for the adjoining cabin, requested transfer to the Foam’s to practice his English and enjoy the company of someone “like you, not grumpy or sour-faced.”
Viresh, 75, a retired UK civil servant is content to remain in perpetual motion. Summers are spent in Raipur with relatives or at his apartment in his native Kolkata; Spring is consumed by visits to friends and a daughter in the UK; and Winter finds him in Cleveland, Ohio at the home of his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Viresh’s wife, who passed away in 1997, was a professor of cardiology; both their son and daughter are practicing cardiologists. Viresh assigns his dual-pension payments to his son; “He pays all my bills; if I need more, he pays that, too.”
Again, carriage conversation ranged over a wide area, but this time it was lighthearted and immemorable. The Foam, playing the role of interlocutor, was sometimes distracted by cockroaches crossing the wall behind the speaker’s head. (On arising the next morning, the Foam found a curious roach on his pillow.) This second evening on the train passed much like the first: sleep made deep by the gentle rocking of carriage. Around 2AM, the Foam was dimly aware of the advent of a third cabin mate.
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Mustafa J. Nakara
Deputy Manager, Tech Solutions
and Train Cabin Buddy
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11/14/05 – Monday
The alarm clock erupted at 3:30AM, as arrival in Calcutta was slated for 4:15AM. Both Mustafa and Viresh had warned of robbers, thieves, pickpockets and con artists at notorious Howrah Junction. On arrival at the Station, the Foam followed their advice and quickly found the upstairs first-class waiting room, presented his used ticket and signed the register. Here it was safe to remain until dawn, when street rogues were less likely to beset the foreign traveler.
The Foam stood on the balcony and watched the human and animal activity in front of the station on the street below. A man in the waiting room took pity, bringing him a plastic chair. For two hours, yin and yang, Sturm und Drang, and the Chain of Interdependent Originations manifested themselves on the Station plaza. Each time dawn added another lumen to the Eastern sky, the din rose another 5 decibels and the number of players on the stage rose by 50. Occasionally, honorable Calcutta rats would scurry across the entire square, from one drain to another, sometimes tumbling over obstacles. Cabs assembled by the score, all honking and jockeying for the best line position. Though a cab would occasionally cut in line, protest was limited to honking; in the US, there would have been fist fights.
In the East, the sky turned bright crimson. It occurred to the Foam that the greatest quantity of greenhouse gases must come from these huge, third-world cities. In Mumbai, the smog was offensive; in Kolkata, it is suffocating. At the city’s center, visibility was limited to perhaps a mile; at night, what looks like fog in the headlights is actually smoke and particulate hydrocarbons. After a day or two, the Foam drastically curtailed walking exercise; the combined effects of Mefloquine (malaria preventive) and massive inhalation of smog produced an assault on the Foam’s liver that left him weak and nauseous.
By 5:45AM, it was safe to snag a taxi north along the Grand Trunk Road and the Ganges (and its distributary, the Hooghly) to Belur Math (math = monastery), the world HQ of the Ramakrishna Order of monks and global administrative hub of Vedanta centers and temples around the world. Although the distance from Howrah to Belur is only about 3 miles, the ride takes 40-70 minutes depending on time of day; traffic is either near standstill or merely crushing. There are no expressways, and the narrow road is jammed with rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, bikes motorcycles, cabs, private cars and trucks. Driving tends to be on the left, but flows wherever it can get through. Horns blare perpetually, not as a warning (there is no such thing as right of way), but simply as a statement: Here I come, ready or not. The Foam has crawled under live machine gun fire and is thus not easily frightened, but a few near misses were too close not to elicit a sharp intake of breath and a brief surge of adrenaline.
It is still early (6:30AM) when the cab arrives at the concourse leading to the Math gate. Halfway down the concourse the Foam notes a condition that by this time has become unfamiliar: peace and quiet. Passing through the gate, the Ramakrishna Museum appears on the left, then the massive Ramakrishna Temple. At the river’s edge, three other small temples are aligned, dedicated to Sri Sarada Devi (Ramakrishna’s consort and spouse, marriage never consummated), Swami Vivekananda (R.’s lead disciple, who introduced Vedanta to the West at the World Parliament of Religions, Chicago World’s Fair, 1893) and Swami Brahmananda, another prominent disciple and author of The Eternal Companion.
The Foam wanders about aimlessly until another foreign visitor from Singapore directs him to the Foreigner’s Guest House just outside the small rear Math gate. Jal, the master of the house directs the Foam to room #3 and invites him to join the others for breakfast (served daily at 6:30A, followed by lunch at noon, tea at 3:30P and supper at 9:00P; fare remains pretty much the same from day to day).
At the dining table are Austin and Elin from LA, Sister Vidyaprana from the Hollywood temple, Roma and her mother from Kuala Lumpur, Susan from St. Louis and another Malaysian family of four. Over the next couple of weeks, pilgrims come and go; tableside conversation tends to be somewhat restrained since the purpose of the visit is contemplation, not socialization, and because the diners come from such disparate backgrounds that topics are few.
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