Montréal

The Train, The Rain...

Wed May 22 23:35:18 EDT 2002 

The train stood there, silent and calm, in the midst of the green; calm like the grazing cows we left behind. Summer, and it takes a long while for the dusk to settle in; the cows might still be grazing.

We were at the border. Presently we started, and entered Canada...

We are already running late. But in the morning, and that was in New York, we started right on time. I took the early morning `Dinky' from Princeton Station to Princeton Junction, and from there to New York Penn Station. And there I waited through a few pages of Ibsen, before the boarding announcement for the Amtrak train was made.

It was raining all morning. The rain, I often think, reminds one of old times- all the old times when it rained, and all of it together in one moment. All of the different days, the mornings, evenings and nights, the drizzle, the pouring rains, the cool breeze and spray, the storm, the thunder and the flashes in the sky... at home, school, college, walking in the rain or standing by the window... the dark nights, the grey mornings (when you are getting dressed to go to school)... the strange sunshine through the rain, or when it clears with the air filled with a mysterious luminence... the umbrellas, the city buses and drenched shirts, the slippers which splash the mud right up to your head, the bicycles (and the brakes so treacherously ineffective), water down your head, your glasses, your dress, and into your shoes...

(I decided not to wear my shoes. It's going to be a bit cold in Montreal, but I didn't want to pack them either. I should be OK.)

Adirondack, the train is called (after the wilderness in northern New York State). As it pulled slowly through the beautiful land, water was everywhere. On the window pane, the dark green leaves, the lush grass. The ponds, the lakes and wow! it's almost like a sea! Blue, green, dark and pale, water, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow with smooth round pebbles showing beneath.

And as we passed them again and again- the water, the green and the land, I thought how it looked like Kerala. How like the train trips through Kerala, in the middle of the monsoon; like the trips through the curves and turns of the rail tracks that cut right through sleepy villages. The rhythm of the train and the travel, and that can bring back the memories of all the train trips too (and the memories of the rhythm that mysteriously flowed from the fingers of Zakir Hussain, as he unrevealed the secrets of raag `raila' to us- that was just a week or two back).

Here it all seemed so much bigger than in Kerala though- the water and the land. May be it's just that I've started forgetting how it's back home... no, I think I remember all too well.

I gazed out as we sped past stretches of green, interrupted by tall brown grass suddenly standing up like hunters holding spears, rising from the earth.

I let the the soft voice announcing the historical landmarks drown in the rhythm of the rails. Beside me was a young Chinese girl- Xiao Chao (I hope I got it right), or Michelle as she introduced herself to me. (Well, not very young, but she was very happy when I told her I would never have guessed she was 26.) She talked to me about China, how she studied music in China and decided to study business in the US, her job, her English, and her worries about all that, and asked me about what I do, my non-existent girl-friend (she was really surprised, like so many others one talks to about these things, that it is quite common among Indians not to have boy/girl-friends), and so on and so forth, until after about three hours later she got down to meet her old school friends coming down from Canada. A few more pages of Ibsen, and then I must have fallen asleep. All those late hours through the previous week took hold of me. Through the rest of the trip till we entered Canada, off and on I was falling asleep.

It was well past 8:30pm when we finally reached the destination, about an hour late. I almost lost my way to the hotel, and wandered off in the wrong direction for about 15 minutes, before hitting the right street. It was then a short walk to the hotel, in good time for a good night's sleep (but not before I met my room-mate and we went out to St. Catherine Street for a nice dinner. Somehow that time I didn't even notice the overwhelming number of shops in the street that offered entertainment of a certain sort. But the next day evening walking down the street, when my companions were joking about the shops- for they literally dotted the street- I was surprised how I could have so completely missed them- I was carefully looking around for a restaurant!)

                        * * *

It's getting late now, and I must get back to the Université de Montréal dorms. (I moved from the hotel yesterday, you see. And a cozy little room it is that I have there.) I hope I can tell you more about my few days here and of course the trip back...

                        * * *

Rest written Sometime in August 2002

I was in Montréal for about a week, I guess. I have actually forgotten. It has been three months since then; since then I went home- back to India- and came back. So what is left to write home about?! :-) Here are a few photos.

Cable-car from below	BioDome from cable-car	From the hotel room
Images from Québéc City

                        * * *

I climbed down the stairs to the twelfth floor and tried to open the door. Locked! I'm locked out in the stairway- and I have a train to catch. I walked up back to the thirteenth and tried the door. No, it's locked too. I waited a while, looking in through the small glass pane on the door, hoping to catch the attention of anyone who walked that way to the bathroom. No luck, and I can't wait indefinitely. So I walked down all the way down- to the tenth floor. There the stairs end. I can go out into a deserted road that I couldn't recognise. May be from there I can walk around the building, and get to the main entrance of the building, and wait there for someone to let me in. But it's cold, and with the strong gusts of wind it's not a good idea to get out, especially when you are clad in something as simple as a `lungi.'

This is what happened. I was at the Université de Montréal dorms. And at ten in the morning or so, I had to catch the Amtrak train back to New York. I got up early enough, thanks to the alarm clock Yao Yun left behind for me. But the toilet in my floor was occupied for an inordinately long time. So I took the elevator to the thirteenth floor. And on my way back, I thought it would be convenient to take the stairs, rather than walk all the way back to the elevator, wait for it, and then in the twelfth floor, again walk all the way back to my room. But I didn't realise that the exit into the stairs was one-way. So there I was, having gone through one way.

Anyway, after some running up and down the stairs, and some planning and assessing and weighing my options and so forth, I managed to find one soul coming out of the bathroom! He opened the door for me, and I was on my way to NY!

Images from the train

Trips back, from just about anywhere, are not as exciting as the trips to just about anywhere. Well, to and from are relative. Still. May be I'm confusing with my trip back from India. For I couldn't have been all that tired on my way back. May be it is that I'm too tired to write about it. It's too tiring to write, when you can't recall that thoughts that you thought and the smells that you smelled. Not that I'm trying to put down those thoughts or smells. Still.

I do remember some things. That I took quite a few snaps through the window panes, though many of them turned out to be quite bad (and those photos, now developed and some of them scanned digitally, are there as haunting testimonies to my mediocre efforts). I remember I went and sat through a session of narrated tour. And I remember being told that the only vegetarian sandwich they have is ham-sandwich with the ham removed. But I also remember getting back home and cooking my dinner. Coming back to Princeton from Montréal cannot be that tiring...