Eif your movements are India involve the use of rail transport, then you certainly need to be prepared for such a phenomenon as Indian railway stations. It seems that there could be something unusual there? Railway station, even if it is in India? However, please do not rush to conclusions and read the article to the end.
Oh roads ... dust, yes fog
For traveler and tourist every country starts with a road. For Indians, local citizens of other nationalities, as well as independent travelers of foreigners, the most acceptable way to travel around India are the railways. This is a cheap, relatively convenient and fairly fast mode of transport. Although, not everything is so smooth ...
Let's begin with buy a train ticket in India not so easy. If you come to the station hoping to buy a ticket for the next train, then it is possible that you will be disappointed - there will be no tickets at the box office. There are so many Hindus and they love to travel by rail so much that neither on the day of departure, nor the next day, you most likely will not find tickets.
You can try to buy tickets in advance, but then you will have to come to the station a week in advance, or even earlier. True, there is another way to buy train tickets - via the Internet. But even there, not everything is so simple ... The real and working option is buying tickets at stations at the offices of the International Tourist Office, according to the quota for foreigners.
But even here you need to be careful and persistent. After all, sticky scammers can simply prevent you from reaching your intended goal. About, how not to fall into the hands of scammers and become the happy owner of the right ticket at a price without markups, read the article "How to Buy Tickets at Delhi Railway Station".
Okay, let's say that with sweat and blood you managed to get the coveted ticket. But it will become cheap only if you use the appropriate class, for example "sleeper" (Code:SL) and in this case there is no need to talk about super convenience.
No, of course, there is an even cheaper class called "general”, aka Second Sitting or just General Class, but not everyone can go there. Tourists who usually use this class then share their experience with others for a long time.
There are also more pleasant travel classes for tourists, for example, conditioned "sleeper" or even a wagon first class, but, hand on heart, I have never used these benefits and I'm not going to.
When traveling in India, I always choose the Sleeper class, but I try to drive no more than 12-15 hours at a time and preferably at night. But driving at night is far from always possible, and this fact helps a lot in communicating with people, whether you like it or not.
The fact is that in this class everything is like in our reserved seat, only in the open cabin there are not four shelves, but six ... Well, do not forget that Indians are very curious and have no idea about personal space.
However, traveling around India by train is a separate and rather extensive topic. Today we will talk only about stations, not all, of course, but about most of them.
Railway stations in India: what to be prepared for?
It is clear that everyone remembers something of their own, but in this case, I think, all of the following will be confirmed by any independent traveler who has visited India. What definitely catches the eye of a traveler at railway stations?
1. Stations are not well suited for waiting for a train
The first thing that rushes upon entering almost any Indian Train Station - This minimum number of seats. Armchairs, benches, chairs are either not available at all, or are present in an amount unsuitable for crowded places.
It is good if you come to the train exactly at the time of its departure. And if, for example, he is delayed for an hour or two? And this happens, and often. If a long-term transfer is planned in your railway route, then that's it - write wasted. Get ready to join dozens, if not hundreds, of people waiting for their trains at any time.
So, many of them have material with them in advance, from which they can make temporary nests for themselves - rags, bedding, pillows, blankets, or something similar. Well, advanced travelers carry rugs or tourist seats with them.
For some comrades, the structures for sleeping and resting are so fundamental that it immediately becomes clear that these people are here seriously and for a long time.
2. Sacred cows - nowhere without them
The second thing that a person who first comes to India by train - This cows. You can read about the global distribution of these representatives of the artiodactyl order on Indian streets anywhere, but the fact that they are the first to meet you when you exit the train to the platform will surely come as another surprise to you.
The horned animal feels equally comfortable both in the queue at the ticket offices, and among the bored people waiting for the train, and among the crowd rushing to the cars.
At a time when people are fussing, in a hurry, late, arriving, leaving, saying goodbye, crying, losing something, finding and doing other activities inherent in the station environment, cows slowly stroll along the platforms. With a certain dignity they eat sweets from garbage containers, and just as slowly, with sense and arrangement, they put the result of their digestion right under the feet of a reasonable person.
At the same time, cows sending their natural needs in the middle of the station do not embarrass anyone at all. Moreover, everyone behaves as if there are no cows here at all. When I aimed my camera lens at the next heifer, which had lowered its muzzle into a slop pail or had just produced the freshest dung product, people looked around curiously in search of the object of my photograph. Then, with noticeable disappointment, they discovered that I was filming a scene so banal for their eyes.
3. Purely human disgusting with all the ensuing consequences
The third thing you should prepare yourself for before using the services of railway transport is, I’m not afraid of this word, to a purely Indian piggy, against which cow excrement looks like a harmless phenomenon of mother nature. Everything you can read about in the article “Why is India so dirty: garbage, dirt, stink and animals…”, as if under the influence of a catalyst, is aggravated in the space limited by the territory of the station.
And so, it goes without saying, people eat at train stations. But, friends, how do they do it in India! You can talk about this for hours, but I will give just one, but a significant example.
Dinner of a respectable family
One Indian madam, accompanied by numerous members of her family, undertook to arrange a small snack, for which, right there, on the platform, a large plate of rice and some kind of bean stew was purchased.
This plate was honorably placed right on the floor, in the center of the circle, along which 8 children, the head of the family, grandparents and other relatives were seated head to head.
They sat without any bedding directly on the floor in traditional for the Indians twisted postures. At the same time, they quite actively rubbed their palms with the far from sterile surface of the concrete floor.
And here attention, friends! Hindus eat with their hands, without resorting to the help of forks, spoons and even more so knives. And now, with these very hands, which have just had close contact with the floor, which has seen dirty slippers, spittle and cow excrement in its lifetime, they begin to roll up rice balls and, thickly wetting them in bean stew, put them into their mouths with expressive pleasure.
When the family meal was finally over, the greasy hands of those who were full were wiped all over the same floor, and the dirty disposable plates were thrown onto the railway tracks without any hesitation.
Bad habit or part of a strange "etiquette"
In general, I got the impression that throwing leftover food on the rails is an integral part of Indian "etiquette". None of the hundreds of people waiting for their trains even thought that garbage can be thrown into containers specially placed around the entire perimeter of the station. No, people deliberately, knowingly went to the paths and dumped there everything that was underdrinked and undereaten.
Immediately, rats and dogs came running to the discarded scraps, and only the noise of an approaching train could stop all this devouring idyll. Rats and dogs scattered, a train approached, from the windows of which dozens of plastic cups with unfinished tea and plastic bags with half-eaten stew were still falling out of the windows ...
A small "bonus" about Indian stations
And finally - a bonus for those who have read it. The fact is that the Indian railway does not imply the presence of sanitary zones!
For those who have never traveled by train, I explain. The sanitary zone is a certain distance before and after each railway station, usually calculated at several tens of kilometers, during which passengers are prohibited from using a public toilet inside the train.
Before my trip to India, I didn’t even think about how useful her invention was for society! But, alas, the rule not to shit inside settlements does not apply to India, so when the train leaves the parking lot, be prepared to contemplate, and most importantly, smell, human excrement in all their diversity. I advise you to stock up on respiratory masks in this case. And I'm not kidding here...
About good and bright ...
But I would like to end this short story on an optimistic note and tell some nice moments, which will significantly brighten up the overall impression of Indian stations:
- Far not all stations are full and many of them have sufficient seating for passengers. The impression also depends on the specific place and time of day;
- At large stations there is often separation of waiting rooms in accordance with the selected tariff;
- Many major stations have paid waiting rooms costing in the area from 1 USD per hour of stay. They are equipped with a TV, air conditioning, places to charge phones and laptops, of course a toilet, and sometimes a shower room.
PS I suddenly remembered that in the city of Mumbai there is an absolutely magnificent architecture Chhatrapati Shivaji train station (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus), a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The architect of this building, beautiful in every nuance, Frederick Stevens really did his best and the appearance of the building is simply impressive. Well, what is especially pleasing ... there are no cows there.
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You read so much about railway stations, about beggars, about dirt, and at first glance strange thoughts come into your head. If reincarnation still exists, then most of all I would not want to be born in India, even in the body of a sacred animal :)) In a word, there are too many minuses
Do not make such categorical statements. This is especially true for the phrase “most of all”. Do not also forget that there are other rather interesting countries in the world, for example, Pakistan, Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the list goes on. And India is different, although it happens like that.