Yet More Odds and Ends

I wish someone had taken a picture. On Monday morning I still hadn’t purchased tickets to return to Jodhpur from Delhi. I had been told that it was better to purchase tickets on a sold-out train at the station than to try to buy them on-line and also that the queues at Mahamandir station would be short. And that the station was only a few kilometers down the road. So just after Commercial Transactions and an hour before the first Contracts class was to start I went to NLU’s front gate. To my surprise, no auto taxis (auto taxis are three-wheelers powered by an undersized two-cylinder engines) in sight. But no problem, a small van taxi was just pulling out from NLU and I was assured the driver could get me to the station. Trouble was, no one asked the driver if he was going that way, and when I told him where I wanted to go he said no, stopped, and pointed to a city bus. Even without any bilingual Hindi-English speakers, the message was clear. So out I hoped, dressed in a blue sport coat and khakis, and carrying a manila folder with class notes, an itinerary, and miscellaneous other papers.

The bus was already over-full (as they usually are) and even the first step up was occupied, but there’s always room for one more, right? So on I squeezed to the good natured laughter of my fellow bus riders. You’d think they’d never seen a dressed-up Westerner hang on as a bus wound its way down N.H. 65 before. Of greater concern to me than my pride (honestly, I was glad to give folks some inexpensive good humor), was that none of them spoke English and I wasn’t sure I was making clear where I wanted to go. They were able to indicate that I should get off where there were auto taxis, so I did.

It turned out that I had ridden past the station on the bus (not that there were any signs, mind you, just a break in the wall). My taxi driver drove me back up the highway, parked on the other side of the road, and shepherded me across two busy lanes of traffic, only to discover that the queue was eight-deep. I was very thankful he indicated that he’d wait for me since there weren’t any other taxis in sight. Half an hour later I made it to the front of the line but the best seats that were available were 3-6 on the wait list. No problem, the ticket agent told me. Oh well, it was only Rs. 2115 for three tickets (LaDonna, our daughter, and me). Except I had only Rs. 500 notes and the agent had no coins. Thankfully, just then my driver walked in and fronted me the change.

Then back to NLU and a generous tip for my helpful driver (who, it turns out, had his shoes re-soled by a cobbler sitting outside the rail station while he was waiting) and on to the second Contracts class with some words about undue influence. But no pictures of me hanging out the bus, I’m afraid.