A tale on the eve of law school and all that followed:

Varanasi to Delhi, 11/20 to 11/21/1973

“Mirage” is his name presently.  My traveling companion amazes. At 31, he’s a Boston College School of Law graduate, leaving for the hippie life one day before he was to leave for Vista training and the legal defense of the other “Indians,” North American style.  M explains his law education as being perhaps mostly a ploy to escape the draft.

The afternoon is mostly resting for tonight’s 13 UP INDIA express to Delhi, strictly 3rd class. We take a last meal at the Mei-Li Chinese, about as American as could be had, (chicken) egg omelet, fries and two cakes all to the tune of “I’m a Soul Man” from Tom Jones Live at Caesar’s Palace!

We get our loads together. Mirage sold his pack in Kathmandu, replacing it with a gunny sack tied with clothes line and suspended off his head Nepalese style.  We find ourselves in the train station, only mildly surprised to learn the Upper India Express is an hour late. We sit on a wooden crate, watching the dusk fade and world go by. Rich people with lines of porters behind them; the not-so-rich squatting by their things, waiting as we are. The poor, old and young, propelling themselves from soul-to-soul in quest of baakseech, one man crawling on his hands and knees, his god-given walking platforms otherwise shriveled and deformed.

Freight and passenger trains pull in, pull out. A curious person asks our names and country, giving five or six others reason to get close, listen and look. That hour late comes and goes. Then here come 13 UP pulled by a huge steam locomotive. The heat and mass of the lead engine drives us back, then we edge in close to the moving cars ready to spring on the first slow moving 3rd class. And there it is. I pile through, my pack a body block to those behind me, and a massive sea anchor to those piling out. In the sixty seconds of ensuing chaos, we have carved out our settlement on one spare seat in the human jungle. Humanity is packed solid all over, coming through windows, sitting upon the luggage racks. They are packed six on the wider seats and everyone else on the floor.

Namaste, Benares and into the night, window up at the short stops, down for the cool breeze while underway. At the stations, the scent of excrement floats out from the nearby bathrooms. So good to get going again, every time.  Babes are on all sides, crying in the early going, having a hard time with the task at hand for all of us, adjusting to conditions that would surround us for the hours, and hours, to come.

Allahabad comes at midnight, many people including our new bright-eyed young friend get off, but the car is assaulted by many more, now standing room only, the hungry eyes of over-population all around us. Mirage makes the mistake of leaving three inches of the corner of his seat free and having some guy plant his rear on it. Now a big-assed soldier is alternating standing up, facing his friends while sticking that rear in Mirage’s face and turning half around to affix the greasy eyeball on my friend’s space.

Three sadarjis (Sikhs) and their wives observe us from the platform with amusement and we amuse back.  They act as if their space was a private suite in the Allahabad Waldorf, the shortest bug-eyed gentleman having milk tea brought in on a tray, they all sipping it with 1st class flair. Then the men, one after the other, open their suitcases and change their pants with casual ease, boxer shorts impeccably ironed, like the crowded station was their own V.I.P. Lounge.

We finally pull out just before 1:00 A.M. It is crammed to the breaking point inside, one gentleman with his forehead resting on the corner of my seat. The ones awake are in good enough spirits by the tones of voice.

Between stops I sit with my eyes closed. The time seems to go faster that way. I think back to the mornings at the Ganga and the half-submerged bathers standing facing the sun, cupping water, lifting it up, letting it fall between their hands, and going back for more. The picture is a matched contradiction: sublime river and this crazy-crowded Upper India Express!

4:00 A.M. comes Kanpur, blessed Kanpur. The car empties 50%, no-one left in the aisles, except a mother and her four kids who chose to sit by the toilet door. I feel as though we are on our home stretch, although we aren’t even half-way thru. The sun will be up soon, hopefully

Mind is scraped dull over the next few hours. Now, I’m unconscious and those busy with a Hindi conversation suddenly make perfect sense, like they are talking American about a CIA operation and all sorts of other intriguing late-night movie material.

The day comes on painfully slow, the sun rising red. By 9:00, the luggage rack monopolizers are up and looking out the windows.  We trade, two window seats for two sleeping spaces. It isn’t really sleep, just a lay-out while listening to assorted junk-sellers with a taste for one-priced auctioneering -- carrying 2 rs at the top of their lungs for a padlock, getting no buyers and going on to an identical lock, same price, louder voice. The singers aren’t bad, until they start rolling you over for baakseech.

Afternoon arrives, we get our seats back and try to ignore the heat and the glare.  Our cattle cavalcade pulls over the Yumuna River Bridge, past the Red Fort and into the Old Delhi Station an hour before I expected: 1:00. Our car empties in an instant.   I take my sweet time getting squared away looking gratefully out the window at that big sign that says DELHI.   Mirage and I put one foot in front of the other following the signs that somehow knowingly say “WAY OUT” and wading through the old “Hello, Hello, You Want…”   On hitting the street, the human hornets’ nest is in full fury. I put my arm firmly around Mirage’s shoulder and grasp his hand. Farewell, fellow traveler.

Tim Bowles

April 3, 2026

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