Isn't It Romantic?

I've left. Anchor up, ship at sea, it's the end of my time in Tamil Nadu. I'm feeling simultaneously free from and nostalgic over the past two and a half months, but that's probably because I just bolted off a 42-hour train ride from the south to the north. Free because the 2nd Class/No AC sleeper compartment had ten years of grit and sweat in its soft plastic seats; nostalgic because the period of time before a mind-numbing event always appears rosy. One thing is certain not to change, though: my illusions of traveling long distance by train. Ever since reading Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and watching White Christmas, some kind of distorted, romanticized perception of sleeping and eating on trains has followed me. Not anymore! That's not to say I don't wish snowy-white dining cars, cushy personal compartments, and delicately-sliced ham and cheese sandwiches on sliver trays existed; it's just to say that they are impossibilities on 99.9% of all trains worldwide. The three-tiered sleeper compartment my friend Cathlin and I called home for two days held a nun, a pharmacist, his brother-in-law, another guy in greasy blue clothes, and a Muslim couple with two kids. No one spoke English but everyone enjoyed Louis Armstrong on my iPod. We ate, slept, argued, breathed, and stared off into each other's personal space together, and when we pulled into our final stop, we silently pulled out our luggage and dissolved into the flowing veins of the station. I wish I could go back to that moment to say goodbye to the couple's little daughter. She was two, with saucer eyes and skinny knees, and we shared a bunk one sweltering afternoon when her mom needed time to sleep.