24/7/10
Namaste Ji!
I am currently on the train to Hyderabad, the "City of Pearls." My Lonely Planet guide describes it as "an elderly, impeccably-dressed princess" which is excellent, because those are the exact words I would use to describe myself. All of my hard work and preparation up to this point culminates at this very moment.
Since my last entry I graduated from Landour Language School, (an accomplishment that was certainly celebrated), and taken a 12-hour bus ride back to Delhi. I decided to spend my last day in Delhi at the Lotus Temple, for those of the Baha'i faith and all others. The temple gets its name from its architecture, as it resembles a lotus. It's a beautiful place, not only in aesthetics but also in feel. In a nutshell, the faith seeks to unite all religions by delineating the similarities at the core of each. To quote the protector of the religion, Shoghi Effendi, "The fundamental principle enunciated by Baha'u'llah...is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive progress... that [religious teachings] differ only in the nonessential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society." The more I learn about it the more I like!
Hour One of my 25-hour train ride, and I intend to update at the passing of every few hours:
The time is now 1800 hours, and the train departed from Platform 4 only half an hour ago. The carriages are so much nicer than I could've expected, especially at the sight of half of Delhi's population (so approx. 9 million then) in the station. We have 17 bags among the nine of us, each of them large enough to hold six months' worth of belongings ("samaan" in Hindi). At some point it was decided that only five coolies (Indian term for porters) would be necessary to carry them from the bus to the train, and the strategy to be taken would be to stack two suitcases on the head of each and make them carry one or two more. I even have pictures to prove it!! Back to my original train of thought (pun intended!)... I'm in a sleeper car with air conditioning and bunk beds, accompanied by four other girls from my group: Liz, Malin, Kathy, and Kim are their names. I am so content and excited to be progressing to another stage of the trip; this transition is a big one, and it involves my seeing much of India along the way!
Ahahaha, so almost 40 hours later, I finally update to say that I'm settled in my dorm in Hyderabad. It is so so nice and the food is good and the city is so much cleaner and cooler. Since I'm staying in the International House, there are like 50 other people, all of whom that I've met thus far are so friendly and easy to get to know. These are going to be some delightful four months!
The train ride was enjoyable and actually felt shorter than the 13 hour flight to India, I got a lot of reading, writing, card-playing, whiskey-sipping, self-reflecting, and friend-making done along the way, but by far the best part was being able to open the door f the moving train and smoke inside the cabin. And I'm not just talking about bidis... It didn't even matter that Eric became best friends with two Hyderabadi cops also riding on the bus!
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