Here we are again, same station, same platform, different train...
"ooh this ones nice, must be the express"
As we board, I'm stunned by how easy and effortless it is to get on. As if all the chaos of the previous days has melted away. This is gonna be an enjoyable ride. We're catching the express from Varanasi to Delhi, just over 8 hours. 8 hours to think. I like it already.
There's a lot to process here, in this country. First there's the traffic, then inbetween towns, there's nothing. First glance. But you have to look again. Quick side eye spots a group bathing around a bucket, theres a group carrying picks and shovels, old ladies lying on the ground, children running, waving, playing tag. There's trucks so high they're on a lean, rice burning in patches, piles of bricks, rubble, sheets of iron in a heap, large chimney stacks in the middle of the field and someone squatting just there, omg.
Every station we approach is a meeting spot. Chai tea brews and boards under arms weighed down by hardship. This place is hard, how do people survive here? Shit, we even see them breaking up the road with a chisel, carrying mounds of gravel on their head in a plastic bucket, that is hard. Sitting back, looking out the window, all I have are thoughts. Good place to absorb life.
Arriving back in Dehli is a breeze. We quickly exit and walk back to the hotel we'd been at before. This time everything seems a little lighter, same people, but we're prepared now. It feels great to be back at the Hari Piorko Hotel, with its large reception desk, oversized guest book, and a hundred people waiting to greet you. We check into our room, one floor above the last one and plan the next phase out to the desert.
Sunday 15 May 2022 till...
The alarm goes off, we're shattered but leap out of bed. We've gotta go to the airport and pick up my sister. She'd only flown home 2 days before. It's crazy. I wait with mum at the airport, such a weird time it is now. We try to act normal but we've been hit with a ten tonne brick (or maybe too much red wine the night before). All I know now, in this present moment, is that life will never be the same.
...now. We're on a journey. We've been on a hundred journeys, maybe even a thousand. They're all different, some good, some not so. Looking out the window I see blades of grass shimmering in the sun, shadows twisting and turning and leaves swaying in the breeze. The air is heavy and light and parallel. Looking out the window, in those moments... little pieces fly away. K