DELHI
I land at 10.10 pm with an Aeroflop flight (it’s not a spelling mistake, I want to clarify) from Moscow. At the airport I meet two students from Bologna, who ask me information for a train to Amritsar. Since I have a lot of time before my train departure, I go with them at the New Delhi railway station, which is the largest in the city, almost certainly the correct one. So, I can also share the cost of the taxi.
In my previous trip, all I saw from Delhi was the airport. Because that had been enough already, I had decided to exclude it from the tour.
In this case, however, I am obliged to stay here.
Delhi station is crowded, and same are the roads around, full of everything, white tiled open-air restaurants, lit by neon lights, rickshaws, vendors, taxi drivers, carts of groceries, and really a lot of people tingling, despite the late hour. The ticket offices for foreigners are on the second floor of the large building, but at night they are closed. Only those for Indian nationals are open, with long queues at the counters. We are then escorted by a travel agent at the next door, where the two guys book their seats with a small commission, and are hosted on comfortable sofas until the time of departure.
A rickshaw takes me to the Old Delhi railway station.
I arrive at 1 am. Dead Calm. Here only silence and complete squalor. It’s cold. In the narrow streets I can see many fires, and desperate people around, intent to heat up. No one has the coat, or jacket, just blankets and shawls. Cows are squatting everywhere. It looks like a medieval scene, terrible but fascinating.
I know that, in India, in most major stations there are retiring rooms : bedrooms, some doubles, some dorms. Travellers holding tickets can use them to rest, but here they are all already occupied, and the doors locked . I peek through a lopsided window shutter, and the impression I get from it is a refugee camp. The sidewalks of the first platform are literally covered with people sleeping on the floor; I’m almost thinking to sit down there too, when I hear a “tiki, tiki, tiki”, the sound of claws / paws trotting on the asphalt.
I think it’s a dog, and instead .. well, the size is almost the same, but it’s some mice, sewer mice, which roam between a lying body and the other one. I quickly run in the first waiting room I find. Mistake: it’s for men only. Another refugees camp. The women one is a little further, there are some planks on the floor, pallets type, all already occupied by women and children wrapped in blankets, and thank God some empty chairs. I resign myself to take a seat there, until the train departure. The genders separation is rigorous, and it is respected by families as well, fathers and husbands occasionally peek on the doorway to check the situation. The outside temperature must be about 6-7°C. For me, it’s not a problem, since I have the appropriate equipment, the usual Belfe jacket, which also serves as a pillow, blanket, etc. etc. according to the needs of the moment, and already survived the previous Indian travel.
The vision of all this misery, and the mice, has troubled me deeply, but since I’m alone, I have no one to vent my pain and my frustration to. For a second I think to run away, call a taxi, and go in a warm and comfortable 4 star hotel. But it is only a moment, when the going gets tough the tough get going. 🙂
Luckily time passes, not as fast as I wished, but finally the hour of departure arrvies, and, after having bought the first of a long series of the typical hot and sweet milk tea, I get on the train.
I’m not lucky, in my compartment there are some boys who jokes and laugh all the time, so I cannot sleep.
Towards the end of the trip, I remain alone, the sun is already high. After having smashed on the wall three cockroaches in half an hour while I’m still lying on my berth, I decide to sit, I hide my eyes for a second from the monotonous landscape that runs in front of me to look disapprovingly some peanut skins on the floor. Indians have a bad habit of throwing everything on the ground, even on public transport, not only in the streets. In the midst of the empty shells, a mouse, not a big rat, but still a mouse, crosses my eyes, moving its whiskers curiously, while I instinctively raise with nervous shooting my feet on the seat in front of me . Until the arrival, when I will have better things to do, it’s time for self-pity, poor me, how can I survive with these animals!