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November 07, 2007
More India: On Public Tranist
If you haven't seen Wes Anderson's latest; The Darjeeling Limited, I highly recommend it. Standard Anderson, people dealing with distant/absent parents and their own messed up lives, but filmed in India. Not really India-accurate, but hilarious nonetheless, and some awesome shots/scenery. If only the trains were actually remotely like that.
The main for of transit is autorickshaws, which I blogged about from India with my "three riddles" :
1) What's the only thing scarier than an autorickshaw ride during rush hour with a shaky transmission?
2) How many autorickshaws does to take to get you to where you want to go?
3) How many lanes does an Indian road have?
(answers at the bottom)
So, what IS an ARS anyhow? It's a three-wheeled gocart-type affair, with a pull-start motor and motorcycle-like handlebar controls. They're about 1/2 as wide as a normal car, and very dexterous moving through traffic. Here's some visual explanation: 
not enough?? Fine. Here's a video of a normal, calm ride in a rickshaw. The (unusual) blasting bollywood tunes help you imagine you're a dashing hero out to save a modest female!
So while ARSs are the best in-town transit, it's the trains that get you between towns. Now, you have to fill out forms for everything at the train station; to get tickets, to request information about what ticket to get, to store your luggage... You even have to sign a log book if you wait in the waiting rooms for the reserved-class cars (the ones where you have a reserved seat, as opposed to the "hope you can squeeze on" style. Fully in line with the standards of bureacracy one comes to expect, we discovered where these forms go: 
note that this was taken at a chest-high window into a room filled with piles of old forms. I'm sure there's a 27B/6 in there somewhere....
You spend lots of time waiting for trains. We had five train rides, 2 of which were 5+ hours late, 2 ~1 hr late, and one on time. You discover all sorts of things while waiting or riding, such as new flavors of chips (warning, may cause mischeviousness):
And you remember why you're paying exhorbitant amounts for a reserved seat:
Excuse me, conductor, this cow doesn't have a ticket:
Rickshaw Quiz Answers!
1) an autorickshaw ride during rush hour with a *good* transmission
2) One more.
3) One more. Tags: delhi indi
Posted by griffjon at November 7, 2007 03:40 PM
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