India 2019-21

Although we'd tried to book seats 10 days in advance, our seats still weren't confirmed when we arrived at the station at 0630. We were still on the reserve list and were issued with a general ticket...
We were directed to the end of the train and into a carriage that was really busy but with two empty bunks. I spent the next 6 hours along with our luggage and other people's...whilst Garf stretched out in relative luxury with a bunk all to himself.
Although I couldn't see out of the windows from my perch, I was kept entertained watching the interactions of the women and children in the seats below; the men either standing in the corridor or up on the bunks too.
There was a regular stream of vendors selling water and chai, and foodstuff that I didnt recognise to supplement the food the passengers shared.
Everyone took some of my sunflower seeds that were handed around, although no one eanted seconds! An elderly gentleman shook his hesd when offered the seeds and opened his mouth to show toothless gums.
He was travelling with his wife and 3 grandchildren of Anonoa, 6, Harish, 10 and Kaveri, 12 and the eldest two told spoke enough English to tell me they were going to boarding school. When we were evicted from the carriage for being in the wrong place, the family were also thrown out and they showed us were to go.
The carriage we should have been in, next door had one hard bench were women were sitting and the rest of the space was taken up with men packed in barely able to move. The grandmother somehow managed to persuade a couple of young men sat at the doorway with their legs dangling from the train, to move. After putting the rice sacks, full of the children's books and clothes on the floor, she gestured to me to squat down next to the toilet and the open carriage door. My knees don't squat for long and it was a long 90 minutes to the next station but I found a pen and paper and showed the children how to play naughts and crosses...Read more