On the train. The Others (Uncle B, Auntie M, the Boy) aren't here yet. *sigh* The parental unit has gone for tea/coffee. Oh, wait, they're here-- the Others, that is.
Went to hunt for books. The Wheeler has nothing both good and cheap-ish, though there is a Ken Follet.
Heat is unbearable, according to everyone. I'm noting this to compare and contrast with when they start stuttering and shivering 'cause it's cold.
And we're off.
Rural bangla outside the windows-- toy huts and patchwork fields and kasphool in white clumps-- small and pretty and deceptively calm.
Fluorescent orange sunset, wind whipping hair into eyes.
People with torches, tracing pitch-dark paths. Light-snake racing by the too-swift windows.
Quarter-dozen cups of coffee, jhal muri and chine badam. Yay, train food.
Leathery nan and alu and far too much foil-packed chicken.
Lots of north-easterners on the train-- at least two hot boys with killer cheekbones.
Onyo loker Durga Pujo-- trains allow people to be unintrusive voyeurs, na?
Maldah-- people and stalls and one lone man perched on a mountain of boxes.
We've got seats near the door and people are spilling water-- Dad and Uncle B are on the warpath.
Train loos are close blood cousins of the Augean stables-- first-cousins, if not brothers.
Blankets and hastily blown-up air pillows (not to mention ruti in paper left on my berth by the last passenger) and the train's rhythm the world's most mechanical lullaby.
Assam's all neat chequered fields, wooded and somewhat blue hills, huge rolling white-blue river with toy boats and action-figure fishermen-- subtly and unsubtly unlike Bengal.
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