we arrive in the desert

In an effort to beat the Diwali rush which routinely packs buses to 200% capacity with late-comers relegated to the roof and single sleeper compartments stuffed with 4-5 bodies, we scramble to find transportation to the western reaches of the Ragisthani desert.   Booking a flight to Jodhpur is easy enough—more in a bit on our fabulous 9 hours there--but we don’t realize how lucky we are to score the last two Tatkal train tickets to Jaisalmer in 3 tier AC.  A rickshaw drops us outside the station at 11pm, and we weave through a sea of people asleep on every inch of flat surface.  It is hard to tell how many are en route for the holiday and how many simply live in and around the station; few seem to have a bag or suitcase, and most lie directly on the pavement.  After gingerly wending our way to the platform, which is similarly carpeted in bodies, we head to the far end of the train to find our car, passing one for the disabled, another for women only and finally 12-15 unreserved 2^nd class cars.  Most of these travelers have arrived in the afternoon to secure a space, well before the electricity has been switched on, and have been squeezing into the dim compartments for hours.  The concept of maximum occupancy is clearly for the reserved class.  Young men pack 3 onto each boarding stair, and inside, children sit two to a lap, with babies in slings hanging from the luggage racks above. The aisles have become triple thick walls of humanity, and the layers of heads and eyes extend as far as we can see until the silhouettes disappear completely in the darkness.  Hundreds of arms dangle out the barred windows, yet for such throngs, it is strangely quiet.  Several large, multi-generational families, patiently waiting to board, sit circled around ancient double-bent grandmothers, who dole out rice and dal on small tin plates as they cradle infants.  The harsh fluorescent lights of the station, combined with legions of rifle and duffle-toting soldiers bound for the eastern border with Pakistan, add to the feel of a mass deportation.  Images of the Nazi transports come to mind. 

No photos can capture this one, sorry.

We feel lucky we know the ropes, having been chaperoned our first time using the Indian train system, and easily find ourselves listed on the manifest posted outside our AC car—the only two names not to appear in Hindi as well as English.  Inside, we find our compartment despite the lack of lights, not to mention AC, and discover we have to make room for 3 extras—a comparative luxury.  

One, who is accused by the conductor of being a thief, is kicked off as the train picks up speed leaving the station.  The other two are French girls with poor English and no Hindi who purchased their tickets at the station that evening, unaware they were waitlisted and not guaranteed spots; they spend the 5 hour ride huddled between two cars to avoid the press of 2^nd class unreserved.  John and I chat with our cabin mates for a bit, then climb into our bunks and try to enjoy a few hours of relative solitude; no one complains about the lack of AC.

True solitude comes our way in Jaisalmer when we reach our fully booked hotel at 5am.  Our cabbie fetches a couple of blankets and leads us to the open-air rooftop restaurant to bed down under the stars for a few hours.  It is cold, and while it may be snowing on the east coast as we write this, the brisk desert air is equally strange for us, and the blankets most welcome.   We’re awoken by dawn and the call to prayer at a nearby mosque. After spending much of the past month in the dense, humid air of Bombay surrounded by skyscrapers, honking cars, trucks, & whizzing motor scooters, and 29 million people, the dry desert air, wide-open vistas, intermittent traffic on dusty dirt roads, which now includes wild pigs and the occasional camel, offers a new set of sensory shocks.  Later in the day, a shopkeeper who is schooling us in the complex world of village textiles explains that Jaiselmer is closer culturally to Afganistan, Iran and Pakistan than the rest of India.