The University Of Patience In India. How I Did Not Become Gay. Part 1.

jankasparec (68)in #travel • 7 years ago

This is one of my memoirs from travels in India. India is the great boot camp for cultivating one's patience. I traveled India extensively 3 times already and subsequently I fancied my significant progress in this area of infinite patience. Something that the subcontinent absolutely requires. Oh if I knew what the upcoming 24hours had in store for me...

Crossing on foot from Nepal to India. 80 pounds on my back, cows by my side, heat everywhere.

I left Lachman Julha around 8h30pm, walking up the hill and up the stairs with my two heavy backpacks towards riksha stand. When I finally got there, I swiped the sweat from my forehead and started bargaining with group of riksha drivers. It took me a while and bit of joking about having to save some money for chapati to grow my flat belly (unmistakable sign of poverty) to bring the price of ride to Rishikesh bus station from 200 down to 80 rupees. Ride was smooth and as a bonus I witnessed heated verbal exchange between my riksha driver and another car driver which almost degenerated into a fist fight. I caught a bus to Haridwar shortly after and got to Haridwar train station around 22pm. My train was not delayed and its arrival was expected at 22h50. So far so good. Even great in Indian standards!

Me and my buddy making the bus depart faster. Loading can be fun.

The day when I bought my train ticket from Haridwar to New Delhi, its PNR status was WL1, meaning waiting list one- I was the first one to get a seat if somebody canceled. My status upon boarding the train today was RAC- Reservation After Cancellation. Meaning- I got to share one second class sleeper with other person. That other person turned out to be an older Indian gentleman of smaller size. Vivid flow of Hindi was streaming out of his mouth (towards my smiling face) without any apparent pause for breathing. He showed no signs of English. We understood each other well and I offered him to spread his legs into my sitting space, so I could do the same and stretch out my tired limbs next to his. Sleeper was about 160cm (5'2'') long and 60cm (2') wide.

Cleanest dog I've seen in India so far. Probably not the case anymore.

All of a sudden some other, younger and taller Indian man approached my neighbor and they swapped their seats. This new dude became my new sleeper “roomate”. Unlike the smaller one, my new neighbor did speak English and was keen on asking me all kinds of personal questions (nothing unusual in India after all). Due to his (and my) size, the chance of any comfort or decent sleep on this somewhat midget-sized sleeper was quasi non-existent.

Indians (the real ones, not the ones we named "Indians" for our stupidity, have the biggest heart of all people.

Two things happened next. Train was invaded by army of merciless mosquitoes whose sole reason for existing was to suck white man's blood (I was the only one). And then my “roomie's” voice changed into sweet female tones and his hand accidentally fell on my bum and to my unpleasant surprise stayed there.
When he asked me if there were many gays in Canada, there were no doubts left about his sexual orientation. I changed position of my body and asked him why is he asking me that question (stupid, huh?) and he answered if I had anything against gays. I told him that no, that I do have gay friends, and that he better not touch me if he wished to remain on the safe side of our sleeper-sharing experience.

Yes there are waterfalls near Rishikesh. And these guys were true rockstars!

Around 1am I was saved by 3 additional coaches added to our train. Our train had to stop for half an hour and I successfully bribed the train controller to give me an empty sleeper in one of the new coaches. My ex-roomie carried affectionately one of my bags for me and insisted on repeating once again the same question: So there is no chance of relationship between us? I had to break his heart and tell him that he needs to leave now.

My roommate. Decent guy. Give him food and he'll never come home drunk with random girls.

Rest of the night was much better, even though mosquitoes continued their assault as a result of which (and noise) I did not sleep much that night. Despite all this, I welcomed the morning filled with optimism. I had great plans for the morning! Buy a train ticket to Indore on foreign quota for tonight (waiting list on General quota was damn long) and pick up my tourist visa at the Embassy of Iran. The later was supposed to be ready, as per confirmation of my very dear friend, who applied for my visa online from Vancouver. She is Iranian and she communicated with the embassy several times to make sure all was good and ready for pick up. Apparently I did not even have to pay, it was all taken care of. How sweet life can be, I thought naively.

How many times I said to myself- "This is the last time....":)