Oliver Benjamin
Indians are a great people. The best thing is that they speak English
pretty well, so you can scare up some interesting conversations.”
“I don’t know…”
“Listen, I followed you down to Samrin, so this time its my turn
to play tour guide. Trust me on this one.”
“The last time I trusted you, I got all my money stolen.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Oscar replied, “but I did get you laid.”
“By a prostitute!”
“So what do you want? You’re no Mel Gibson you know.” He was
grinning. “Just shut up and come along for the ride. You can’t be a
baby all your life.”
Being called a baby by this frail waif of a man was a direct
challenge to my manhood, so I decided that anything he could do, I
could do better. Arriving at the ticket window, Oscar asked for two
third-class tickets. When the clerk looked at him incredulously,
Oscar explained, “We want to do this right.”
Within no time, we were stuffed into a train car that in my
opinion wasn’t even fit for baggage. It was impossible to get to our
seats, much less sit down in them, as there were so many non-paying
passengers blocking the way. Even if we had made it to our seats,
they were made of a hard wood that would have only been
comfortable for yogis who were accustomed to sleeping on nails.
After standing up for three hours with our luggage, drenched with
perspiration and breathing the smoke and sweat-filled air, we were
justifiably miserable. No less than forty people had asked us where
we were from and what our names were and if they could have our
watches as presents before we decided that third class was a little
extreme and that maybe we should give second class a shot.
At the next stop, we slipped an attendant some baksheesh(a
donation, tip, bribe or extortion fee, depending on the situation) to
find us a seat in the second-class carriage. At first it seemed that they
were completely full, but he finally managed to find us some seats by
throwing two very thin and very poor-looking men off the train.
Oscar looked at the men and offered a polite English apology.
“Sorry,” he chirped, shrugging sheepishly before the two peasants
were hurled from the carriage.
“Now this is luxury!” Oscar sang, throwing his hands behind his
head, accidentally hitting the two Indians who sat on either side of
him. “Oops, sorry,” he apologized. They hadn’t even noticed that
they’d been hit.
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