TOGETHER AGAIN
Today was the day I finally caught up with Todd and Susie. They came back from a three day visit to Bundi at noon. But before that I spent two hours at Dr. Kakar’s Global Clinic having a root canal. When a nerve below and in the tooth gets infected the nerve canal has to be scoured clean. The the root canal expert brought in for this operation, numbed me with a couple of shots and then drilled through the crown of the tooth and into the nerve canal through the root of the tooth. The tooth, to protect itself calcifies around the infection. The doctor spent over an hour cleaning out the infection and then with a thin rasp removed the calcification by hand on one root with an up and down grating movement. After two hours of rasping he said he could only do one root on this day and I would be back for a couple more hours of rasping away on my second nerve canal when I return to Delhi in a week.
We spent the afternoon at the Master Paying Guest House and then caught the overnight Rajdhani Express to Palanpur in Gujurat. We were traveling second class air conditioned with reserved berths. First class has a little more room but is much more expensive. Air conditioned means that in winter when the temperature can get down in the 40’s, the car is heated and comfortable. On one side of the narrow passage through the car are two seats beside the window facing each other which fold down to be a berth with another berth up above, both length wise in the train. Opposite thes two berths is an open compartment with four berths, two on each side facing each other at night or six seats during the day with the lower berth folded up to be the backrest of three seats on a long padded bench.
During the day the passengers sit on the long padded benches but in the early evening an attendant brings around packets of two sheets and a pillow and a towel as well as a heavy wool blanket for each person. Even though it is chilly outside the train the heated car is comfortably warm.
At 8 or 9, whenever the passengers can agree the seat backs are folded down and each person makes up his bed with sheets and a blanket and pillow and everyone retires to their berth either to read or to sleep. There are curtains to make the compartment completely dark at night. Everyone rocks to sleep. And attendant comes by to wake people before their station so that they can get ready is get off. The train only stopped for two minutes in Palanpur so we had to be ready. We were met by a car from the Virampur Ashram and driven the 40 minute drive to Virampur where we were greeted with an Indian breakfast of powah, a mixture of fluffy rice and diced potatoes and spices.
Indian overnight train rides are great fun. We talked with our fellow passengers and then a very dapper conductor arrived to check our tickets and to make conversation. He took photographs of Todd, Susie and me to send to his daughter and we took photographs of him. He even pulled out a Western Indian Railways armband, Commander of the Train, either a serious armband or a joke, we couldn’t tell which. And then he was off to check on the rest of the train. The other passengers had ordered meals which were placed on the train about an hour out of Delhi, an Indian Meal on a metal tray and we were all given a bottle of mineral water. But we had already eaten so we made up our beds and fell asleep, rocked gently by the swaying train and listening to the mournful sound of the train horn as we raced through the night toward Palanpur.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 