India and Trains - and - What is the difference between India and China?

In a recent book published by Viking called:"How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours", Tarun Khanna writes:

"Indian railway carriages are still routinely crowded with two to three times as many passengers as they are meant to carry, making every arrival and departure a stampede of hundreds of people; a massive surging sea of humanity josling to find their place and bags in the caboos..."

He goes on to compare trains in China and India: "Sleek, efficient, immaculate, and orderly were adjectives that immediately came to mind during my first high speed train ride from Shanghai airport to Pudong...The Nanjing Station resembles a modern airport, not the New Delhi like higgly-piggledy of human activity... Nanjing's modern escalators are in sharp contrast to the dilapidated stairs, often crowded with beggars, that one is forced to climb in New Delhi."

His concludes with the exact thoughts I now have in mind: "Whereas order, harmony and hierarchy have been the constant goals of the Chinese state, India has a proud tradition of pluralism, dissent, and debate. Anyone seeking to engage in a dialoge with these countries must undestand the fundamentally different ideologies and political antecedents of their current practices. They are deep seated and long lived."

While we missed the opportunity to ride the Maglev train in China, we did have a chance to ride the super new and modern Skytrain as well as the subway in Bangkok. And I almost wished we never did it before we undertook our train ride in India...

We took the night train from Chennai to Bangalore leaving around midnight and arriving early at about 5:30 AM, repeating the same trip on the way back. When we arrived to the train station in our bus, the bus driver told us to stay on the bus and wait till he goes to check and see whether the train is in the terminal before we can leave the bus and enter the station (we, of course, did not know why he did that). As we joked about what lay ahead (who will be sleeping in what compartment and with whom), we were given the signal to hurry up and start walking toward the station and the train's platform.

As we entered the station, we felt like we walked into a strange movie scene... everything felt beyond real -- the bodies of people sleeping on the floor in every corner, the terrible smells, the dirty surrounding were a shock. The guide kept pushing us to move fast so we will not be able to look around too much or be approached by the beggars and lepers around. As we half ran with our backbacks facing the front, for fear of thieves, some of the students tried to take pictures mumbling "this is ubelievable, unbelievable..."

Once we found our compartment, we realized we will be sleeping in groups of 8 with people in 3 or 3 bunks above each other (just like in a prison cell). We were given what seemed to be clean sheets and a wool blanket. As the students sat on the bunks trying to absorb their new environement, we kept being reminded by our Indian guide to keep our backpacks under our heads and guard our possessions very closely. Trip to the toilet were a test in holding your breadth so many of us avoided them. As some of our girl students discovered cockroaches crowling out of corners, they began screaming but later on were told that if they turned off the lights and took no food out, they should be bale to avoid them... Needless to say, have AC in the compartment was the only perk... Once everyone fell asleep, I tossed and turned on the small bunk bed getting up every hour to check on the safety of the students. Luckily they were all sleeping and I finally dosed off for an hour.

As the train screeched to a halt in Bangalore, we rubbed our eyes and sleepily walked out only to be, once again, assaulted by the horrible sights and smells of the train station. As we hurried to our awaiting buses, the students started reassuring each other: "that wasn't so bad, was it..."

By the time our field day was over and we got back to another station in Bangalore for the trip home, the mood was less optimistic. Some of the students expressed dread of having to go through the whole thing again. I was somewhat relieved when they ended up being so tired, that they all fell asleep quickly, allowing me to finally grab a couple of hours of sleep...

The final test was arriving to the station in Chennai at 5:00 and having to walk the length of the platform through hundreds of people who were just waking up from sleeping everywhere they could in the midst of filth as stray dogs were wondering around looking for food. Wearily we all eyed them with ah eavy heart. We have just retuned from visiting the gleeming headquarters of some companies in Bangalore, ate a decent meal at a small hotel there and had a nice bus awaiting to take us to our cruise ship... I felt like an alien returning to the mother space ship...