Of uneven platforms and novice train travelers!

Platforms by loose definition are raised, level surfaces. But not the platforms I am talking about, and certainly not the ones in what I call "small town North India"; they may be raised but they sure are not level! Let me explain ...

Novice passenger A to food vendor X: Bhaiyya, C1 coach kahan aayega?

Platform food vendor X: Thoda aage jao madam.

Novice (and doubting) passenger A to food vendor Y:  Bhaiyya, C1 coach kahan aayega?

Platform food vendor Y (standing three feet away from vendor X): C1? Aunty peeche jana, bahut peeche, pul ke paas!

Now Novice Passenger A is a novice who is seriously worried and nervous. For those who know that worrying is my favourite hobby, no prizes for guessing that this tortured soul is me!

But seriously, wouldn't you be worried if two people you think would be absolute experts on the matter gave you diametrically opposed pieces of advice? Wouldn't you start running a wild mental marathon, first in one direction, then in the other to find Coach C1?

Don't laugh at me - I happen to be a very smart person who anticipates problems so they can be tackled smoothly when they appear, and yes I assume they will appear, and no there is no "if" they appear in my mind! So I anticipate that I am going to have to run helter skelter to find my coach in the two minutes the train will stand at the station, and I start planning and strategizing (I hope this word exists, but I don't care if it does not) in my head how I am going to accomplish this feat. And don't tell me I can jump onto the train anywhere and then find my coach, because I have been there and done that and repented - pulling my stroller through nine, yes nine long coaches, and nine (or was it eighteen?) really heavy connecting doors between the coaches, (each of which swung back real hard and trapped either me or my stroller suitcase, whichever went second), to arrive at my reserved coach and seat was no fun at all, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise. So I have decided it is better to run my crazy mental marathon before boarding every single time I need to catch a train!

Anyway, having decided on my strategy I usually find a crowded, well lit spot on the platform. As I stand there practising my moves and improving on my best timing in my mind I am surrounded by large circles of squatting men, women and children, weird looking "holy men" with dreadlocks and loin cloths, and stray, wild eyed and hungry looking dogs. The children often take a walk to the edge of the platform to empty their bladders, the women in bright, gaudy, shiny sarees have their ghungats pulled well over their faces, and the men (the weird holy ones included) stare unabashedly at everything with breasts (size immaterial)! The dogs seem to be there only to add to my worries about contracting rabies, and of course to sniff at all the garbage, every snot and phlegm smear, and every rivulet of god-knows-what on the platform!

As it happens, when the train finally pulls into the station and begins to slow down I am able to read the coach numbers, and am able to walk to my coach at a much more leisurely clip than expected (but that may be because I have practised so hard in my mind)! As I start nearing my coach I begin to see people standing and waiting patiently for the train to come to a halt alongside the platform, in stark contrast to the mad scramble and excitement my mind seems to register amongst the squatting men, women and children as I begin to move away from them to find my coach. Instead of the motley shapes of the bundles and sacks of luggage of my erstwhile platform companions, here I see small, neat little strollers, laptop cases, and smart handbags. Office style shirts, American style shapeless bermudas, basketball shorts and sneakers, smart salwar suits, small, compact groups of people consisting of mom, dad and just one or two children, or lone, successful looking young executives, and prosperous, portly businessmen pierce my consciousness and inexplicably I begin to relax...

I board the train, find my seat and wonder why I did not see these blessed and beautiful people when I arrived at the station. Fool, my rational brain tells me, you did not see them because they did not arrive at the station a whole hour and a half before the scheduled arrival of the train. I realise that if they had arrived at the time I had arrived, or I had arrived at the time they had, I would not have needed to ask anyone where Coach C1 was likely to be. I could just have stood with them and waited for my train to arrive, because the railway platform is a microcosm of India, and because the reality of India's deep divides is as visible and tangible on every single railway platform as it is in its schools, colleges, housing complexes, markets, food habits, and just about everything else!

Now I know you would expect that the next time I have to catch a train I will take the easy way out and just seek out the laptops and branded sneakers on the platform. But you have another think coming... . Maybe my irrational brain is stronger than my rational brain, because I know I will continue to arrive ninety minutes in advance of my train and relive the agony every single time!        

How to console yourself .... the ramblings of a diplomatic spouse!

The life and world of a diplomatic spouse such as I am are demanding and stressful in a luxurious way! Confused? I don't blame you...

As a diplomatic spouse you get to meet national and world figures till you begin to take these encounters for granted, wine and dine at the very fanciest of restaurants, live in palatial homes, drive around in fancy cars, hobnob with only the cream of the cream of society in any country, have doors opened for you and get instantly recognized wherever you go, etc. etc. etc. But you don't have the right to make your own decisions in the job you do abroad! Any job you take up while your diplomat husband is on a foreign assignment must be in keeping with the prestige of his position, must not in any way compromise his position as the representative of his country, or be in conflict with the national interest (an idea which usually puts even cultural organisations of foreign countries like the British Council for instance) out of bounds as a workplace for the diplomatic spouse. The stress and frustration of not being able to work at all during my last posting drove me to write this piece sometime in 2008. I was trying to console myself as well as my fellow diplomatic spouses who often find themselves in similar circumstances....scroll down for my rantings....   

If every challenge is viewed as an outlet for the creativity within you, think how much creative energy you as a Foreign Service spouse can unleash on the world! If I may take the liberty of defining creativity as the capacity and ability to give birth to just about anything that did not exist before, then I have been a female M.F. Hussain for the past year!


Frustration had me in its grip when I found I could not work in our current posting in Guangzhou. On arrival here I sent my curriculum vitae to various places, and the job offer letters soon followed. My bubble went bust when I found that my diplomatic status stood between myself and a job. Giving up my diplomatic visa (the only way I could get a work permit) was a no-no. I tore up the letters and fell into a sullen depression.

Fortunately I was in a unique situation that only a handful of us experience. My husband was the first Consul General of India in Guangzhou. We had a clean slate to write on, on all fronts – interaction with people from our own consulate, people of Indian origin in Guangzhou, the local Chinese community, and the foreign diplomatic community! My creative energy could be in overdrive all of my waking moments!

My husband’s clear brief was to set up a new consulate. Mine, implicit and unwritten, was to select an appropriate residence and decorate it in signature Indian style. Throwing myself headlong into this project I closely surveyed every home décor market in the city while waiting for the objets de art and carpets to arrive from New Delhi – a trying project for someone with very little patience! I selected carpets from photographs. Who knew what they would look like in real life, despite having agonized over the colours before faxing the order? How could I order sofas and drapes without having the carpets? Yet I knew it would be weeks if not months before the carpets were shipped to me. A classic (and very stressful) chicken or egg dilemma… Further, my search for elegant, yet inexpensive furniture and light fittings in this land of over-the-top, ostentatious tastes, was aesthetically distressing and physically exhausting! And always looming over me was the fear that should every stick of furniture that I bought for the Residence not last for the stipulated seventeen or whatever years, I would be cursed by every Consul General spouse after me!!! What a burden to live with…

When the Residence was done I was at a loose end and getting crabby again. Luckily, another project was staring me in the face. We had six India-based staff with families, and something was missing in my life …..Of course! I was beginning to miss the monthly Spouses’ Meets that to me had become an integral part of mission life. And so the Guangzhou Indian Consulate General’s Spouses’ Club was born. However, this was a Spouses’ Club with “Chinese characteristics” (a phrase that describes China’s unique brand of economic liberalization)! All the families except mine were in China for the first time. Our club meetings would be an excuse to get the consulate ladies out once a month to visit Guangzhou’s many humongous markets, take a Pearl River cruise, go to a performance of Chinese acrobatics, visit parks, do a karaoke evening – in short have fun, get to know the city, and socialize without slaving away in the kitchen to put out an elaborate tea! This bunch of young and enthusiastic women was game. Today, just seven months since its inception, our small eight member strong Spouses’ Club thrives and grows in its monthly agenda, as from time to time new ideas like having a kitty draw and celebrating birthdays, and older conventions like welcoming members (we’re all still too new to be bidding goodbye to anyone) are incorporated.

Guangzhou, a large, sprawling city with chaotic traffic and confusing roads makes getting around town time consuming. This forces many Indians to live in strange isolation from each other. As a result, unlike in other Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, there has been no spontaneous formation of an all encompassing Indian association in Guangzhou. Groups drawn along parochial lines and based on the physical proximity of their members have solidified over the years - not an ideal situation in terms of offering support to other Indians, creating an Indian identity, or marshalling resources for charity work, social service, and emergency relief work. My assessment of the situation found echoes in the conversations I had with Indian women in the city. A suggestion that I could facilitate the forming of a pan-Indian women’s association was greeted with enthusiasm. The idea bore fruit in the formation of the Guangzhou Indian Women’s Association or GIWA (pronounced Jeeva). The association’s core group consists of representatives of several organized and unorganized groups of Indians in Guangzhou. It is committed to making GIWA first and foremost a support group for all Indian families in Guangzhou. While GIWA has its work cut out for it as far as reaching out to every Indian woman in Guangzhou is concerned, a beginning has been made to build on.

Through all of these efforts, one thought nagged at me. Was my professional training as a qualified Reading Specialist going to rust and decay during this posting? I could not, would not let it happen. Okay, so I could not work for money. But who could stop me if I did it for charity? While I am at an age when the idea of doing something beyond my self-interest appeals to me, I am not so old that I don’t seek anything at all in return. Reinventing myself for the nth time in my husband’s career I decided I was going to read aloud to young children, and encourage their mothers to give to charity for having this specialized service. A group of young mothers responded enthusiastically. They like me were killing two birds with one stone. We were all satisfying our altruistic feelings by donating to GIVES (Guangdong International Volunteer Expatriate Service), which helps Chinese children with autism, cerebral palsy, and other disabilities. In return, their own children were being exposed to regular, effective, and systematic read alouds by an “expert”, and I was keeping my skills (at least one of them) alive - a win-win situation for everyone!

And so, I end my ramblings by proposing a toast to not only my definition of creativity, but also to the Hussain I know exists in all Foreign Service spouses. Cheers!