Last day in Lucknow
6/18/2010
Night rolled around and Shilpi ji dropped me off at the train station. Okay so this really old lady in a blue sari made it a point to stand like 2 ft away from me and just stare!!!! Like dang!!! I think that was the most bluntness I've had to deal with since being here in India. Shilpi Ji ended up calling her paagal (crazy) and told her to go away. For some reason, this time around, when I noticed she was starring I stayed annoyed. Trust me, It didn't get funny. I told Shilpi ji if she didn't say nothing, then I was about to. Regardless of the language barrier, attitude gets across and believe me that lady was finna catch a case lol. But Shilpi Ji did the yelling for me, so it was all good. So my train came and I got settled. This train was nice; no bugs, air condition, and completely comfortable. I fell asleep for most of the night (train left Lucknow around 12:30 am and was expected to arrive in Jaipur at 11:30 am). When I woke it was around 8:00 am. I stayed up and didn't risk falling back asleep so that I could watch for my stop. Shilpi Ji had asked my train neighbor to watch over me and make sure I get to Jaipur, but this Uncle had to get off early. I got new neighbors and they didn't pay me no mind. Lol. Except at one point, one of my new neighbors, bunking directly in front of me, a guy, started blasting a Hindi hip-hop song with urban English phrases in it like: “baby girl,” “back it up,” and, “work it”. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Now we all know good and well, if I wasn't his neighbor he would not have been blasting and singing along, like he hood, to that kind of song!!! lol. Anyways so 11:30 am came around and we still hadn't reached Jaipur. I was antsy at this point because I was really not wanting to miss my stop. Jaipur finally rolled around but I didn't see the train station sign until the train had stopped there for like 2 mins. I quickly got up and grabbed my things but I promise you, the train did not wait at that station for more than 3 mins before starting back up... WITH ME STILL ON IT!!! I was flipping out. I ran to the door and looked down at the passing tracks. The train was MOVING!!!! For a sec I stood there deliberating whether to stay on and get off at the next train station; and just call Rakesh Ji (Program leader) to explain what had happened and have him arrange for my trip back, or just jump and hope for the best. I opted for jumping. I jumped and OMG!!! Someone should have been there with a camera. This was totally my old hollywood moment. The caption for this scene would have been: Black girl jumps out of moving train. I landed flat on some guy and we both went down together. My luggage, in the spur of the moment, had escaped my grasped, did a few flips and landed inches away from me. Whew!!! The guy I landed on was totally pissed, and kept worriedly looking around to see who had witnessed the scene; which is totally justifiable because, I' m sure looking at our positions, the wrong idea could have been easily deducted. I had accidentally grabbed a good chuck of his shirt, lifting it up in the process. So picture this: Black girl lying on top of Indian man with his shirt halfway up and in her hands. Yea...not pretty. Lol. I wonder how do I always get myself in these kinds of situations. Ugh. It's just my luck. I got off from on top of him; thanking God there was no press around. Trust me, the Jaipur Times (newspaper name) loves taboo and prints just about anything. Since it's a local paper, I would have easily made front page, with a botched up headline and a story sensationalizing the truth. Hahaha. I can just see the story now:
“Sameer Khan (made up name) met a girl from Uganda (because I'm black. The Indian press assumes a lot. They wouldn't bother asking) online. They fell in love but his parents have forbidden their marriage. The girl has slaved away in an African diamond mine for 5 years; saving up in hopes of one day meeting her beloved. She flew to India the beginning of this month, and yesterday she took a train from Delhi to Jaipur. In excitement she couldn't wait for the train to stop and she jumped into the arms of her waiting beloved. He had been waiting at that station all afternoon. The two have been rumored to have run away together with Sameer's parents in pursuit, harboring intentions of performing honor killings (sadly an occurence here)! The police have seen no sign of either party since the incident, but will continue investigating”
Yup. That's probably how it would have been told; and all the while I would have been at home, reading the story over toast. I make it a point to read the papers everyday here. It really is quite interesting. Anyways, a lot of people must have witnessed the scene, because I heard a bunch of laughs. I was too embarrassed to laugh. I kept apologizing to the man in Hindi after I retrieved my luggage but he just angrily stared back. Oh well. I caught a overly priced rickshaw back. And, I reached home safely =)
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