Rains did interrupt our tour at Nalanda. There were strong wind gusts with rain clouds above. It was more of a shower than a sustained rain. We had to take cover. The open areas of Nalanda got evacuated because of danger due to thunder. The bricks had strong iron content that attracted lightning. The roof and other tools of insulation had withered away. We took shelter under a tree. We reached Patna Railway Station at about 7:30 PM. The driver had scheduled to return back to Gaya. He said that the road was not safe for solitary journey back. He might have to make a night halt on the road and leave in the morning. I was disturbed by the deteriorating law and order situation. The security people do go corrupt, rough elements take over. It is a function of unemployment and bad economy. The old land of wisdom and opulence had deteriorated into penury and hooliganism. Recovery period could be long.
Our train was called "Garib Rath" meaning the "chariot of the poor". True to its name, it does not gain much respect on the tracks and was delayed arbitrarily. The initial announcement of one hour delay increased to six hours. We were stuck on the cold and smog of the open platform. I wondered about the poor in the country. Though it was a good experience to understand the life in the country, I was getting anxious due to my schedule. The smog affects the lungs slowly which I discovered later. There were many like us camped in that open platform. In the modern literature, India is a part of a "developing economy." The train showed up at 2 AM and we were loaded to our sleeping areas. By the time I got up, the sun was already thirty degrees up in the sky. The train was going through some beautiful country side. I saw more activity as we got closer to Calcutta. These were the areas of factories and manufacturing plants. The train had covered up quite a bit for its delay in the night. We were an hour away from Howrah. Howrah is a whole different town from Calcutta. The railway station was built away from the city to make it a trade center. Calcutta was the administrative center of the British East India Company for a long period. The initial war of occupation happened at a battlefield nearby in 1757. Calcutta was blessed with English educational institutions and western liberal thinking. One cannot teach liberal ideas as a value and then occupy lands. The nucleus of resistance against the British sprouted at Calcutta. The area came to be known for its free thinking. Howrah station is a replica of the humanity of the planet earth. You see the diversity of India in the cavernous waiting area of about two acres in space. There was a small fenced enclosure marked "for upper class passengers". I was asked to wait there. Dr Laxmi and Soumya left to check the train schedule for our remaining part of the journey. I bought a local newspaper and sat down on a shiny metal bench, which were installed in rows. While vendors and hawkers come and go and seats swap with new passengers coming in, I saw a group of about two dozen young teens with Islamic skull caps coming in with massive amount of luggage. It looked as though they were relocating. Having read about the adventures of young Islamists in the news, I got curious about the group. Nobody else seemed to care. But I became very sensitive to various bags and suitcases they were carrying. A person with US connection can be a target!
I tried to observe if the group had an escort or a teacher assuming that they were on a long field trip. I did not see any. I noticed a tall young man with beard acting as a caretaker for the group. I tried to engage him in a conversation when he was passing by. He could be about eighteen years of age, a lean young man with loose white trousers and a knee-length white top. He had a white embroidered skull cap and uncut new beard.
The young man told me that the group was proceeding to a Islamic boarding school in Kerala. Kerala is the southernmost State in Indian Union and is manifestly cosmopolitan. A land of productivity and scholarship, many Indian philosophical and religious ideas originated in Kerala. It is a land of dance, music and literature. Christian saints landed at its coat in the first century AD. Arabs had a continuing sea trade for centuries. Islam entered easily. People in Kerala are scholarly and open-minded. In the modern India's secular view, Kerala is a success story. Lately foreign money is pumped into the area through the churches and the mosques. With the religious freedom as a public policy in India, religious brain washing could be the real terror. Though I should not distrust, I suspected the innocence of the young man. Possibly he had no choice. A young man of lesser means needs advancement. It is not his or her fault if the society fails to provide for the person. My view was journalistic, purely an observation. I wished him well.
A man came by and sat next to me. He probably got interested through my previous conversation. I learned that he was from Mumbai and was on a business trip to Chennai. I asked him if the old Railway Retiring Rooms existed. He communicated that there was a nice facility upstairs which could be used for "upper class" passengers. After Dr Laxmi and Soumya returned, we shifted ourselves to this new oasis.
This was the familiar "First Class" waiting room where I had spent many hours with my father. The room itself had not changed, but the access area was renovated. Inside Hall it looked more like an Ivy League gymnasium, various people engaged in shaving, dressing, tidying and preparing. it is the sight of new India. People were in a rush. Everybody was quickly preparing for some business somewhere.
In this rush of business, we were the tired passengers. We were told that our train would not leave until 10 PM in the night. Apparently there had been weather related incidents on the tracks and trains would only go after the tracks were cleared all through. I suggested that we could use the day to visit the Kalighat Temple that I had in mind. My friends agreed. You would not find a better set of traveling companions in the whole planet!
