In our school days we used to write essays on train journey. Most of the time they were not the original account, but one thing that was true is that we get to meet new people.
Due to drop in airfares I did not travel in trains for almost 4 years, but the recent rise in the airfare again made me go back to the old way of traveling. In last couple of months I traveled from Hyderabad to Chennai and Haridwar to Delhi by train, and in both the journeys I had interesting company.
During my last journey I met a French lady who was coming from Rishikesh. Our conversation started because of the book I was reading – Jesus Lived in India. She looked at the book and said jokingly “you have so many Gods we just have one, now you want to take that also”.
She had a connecting train from Delhi to Nasik, where she was heading to attend a Yoga camp for 4 weeks. In the course of 5 hours I got to know more about her & her association with India. She was visiting India since 1992 and in last 16 years she has traveled most of the parts in India. Since her retirement couple of years back, she has been spending almost 6 months in year in India. She knew more about India than I do. During her stays she usually stayed in ashrams, due to which she knew a lot about Hinduism & Vedanta. She has been practicing yoga for last 20 years and that was the reason for her initially few visits, but later she fell in love with the country.
There were lots of things she disliked about India, like the way people cheat or treat a foreigner. In fact she told me couple of incidences, like the one when she was going to Rishikesh from Haridwar in the state transport bus and the conductor asked her Rs. 70/- when the normal fare was Rs. 20/-. Another similar incidence was when in Rishikesh a tempo driver asked her Rs. 50/- where the actual fare was Rs. 5/-. Now these kinds of incidences are common across the world, because last year when I went to US, the cab driver asked $100 against the usual fare of $65 between San Francisco & Redwood City. Something else she disliked was the way people drive. According to her, people in India drive with their heart & emotions. I cannot agree more. :)
