Krishna comes with us

So I pack a couple of saris and ran down to hop on the jeep to take us to the station to take us to puri. I wasn't exactly sure if I would go to puri with the crew after only meeting them for 5 minutes--I thought of calling up a friend to take with me but was scared to delay things. I figured if I don't miss the jeep, and it doesn't leave too late for the train, I might as well go. I crossed the jeep-less dirt road to the newly-constructed brahmacharini ashram where the frantic girl was staying--actually her name is Sudevi Sundari--we'll call her SS. After many a cellphone call and a couple of cellphone yells by one of the Russians accompanying us, we gave up on the jeep we were waiting for--for about an hour and called a new one--actually a couple just in case. The prudent time to leave would be at least 2:30, but at 3:20 two jeeps bobbed down the bumpy road to whisk us off. At that moment, my excellently adventurous friend Lalita strolls down with her bicycle in hand. After a quick hug, I scream "we're going to puri, we have free tickets, hop on right now, you can wear my clothes!" "sure I'll come to puri with you, but I have to lock my house. 10 minutes"
and then she was off on her cycle, her hair trailing in the wind.
after complications with the other woman we were meant to pick up, Lalita arrives on a rickshaw like a classic hippie, with a big backpacker-backpack, holding a guitar. after scrambling in to the back of the TATA sumo (the favorite indian SUV) we were finally trailing off to Howrah station at 3:40 pm.

The departure of the Jagannath express to Puri is 7:00 pm nightly. Travellers should arrive at the train station at least 30 minutes before departure and the time to reach Calcutta is usually a minimum of 4 hours. If you want me to save you the math, we should have left AT LEAST at 2:30 if we intended to reach the train.

On our 50-minute late journey, we encountered one of those notorious indian railway track road blocks that delayed us another 15 minutes. To make matters worse, the truck at the front of the line had broken down and we were stuck behind it as traffic squeezed pass it coming the other way. Growing increasingly restless, one of the brahmacharinis rushed into the middle of the road and started directing traffic to let us through. This task was not difficult, as the other truck drivers were more than happy to watch the tall white skinned Indian-dressed woman taking charge of vehicular motion.

With the lorrys and ambassadors out of the way, we swifted down the road once again, reaching north Calcutta at 6:15. "Sorry girls, we won't make the train" proclaimed Lalita, matter-of-factly "It's simply not possible. To reach Howrah from here takes minimum one hour." Nonetheless, we prayed desperately to Jagannath. Lalita noticed a couple of His pictures on the way. It must be a sign.

At 6:55, we had reached the end of Howrah bridge. The jeep was in frantic exasperation, come one... come on...

The moment we reached the front of Howrah station, I threw open the back of the jeep door and jumped out into the middle of the taxi-jam. as traffic started moving again, I ran after the jeep, with barefoot lalita next to me, escaping the following taxi. As traffic clogged again, the rest of the brahmacharinis jumped out and grabbed their luggage from the roof of the Tata sumo and ran through the traffic into the station. Huge red digits shone over us-- 7:00. I glimpsed our train on platform 17. We ran through our own traffic jam, elbowing passers-by, running over toes, shoving away koolies. Hundreds of eyes ogled as 5 sari-clad foreign women ran down the platform carrying large rolly-bags and laughing hysterically. We scrambled on to our compartment, still guffawing away.
The train glided at 7:01

Jay Jagannath!

Krishna is everywhere

The adventures of the 19th, 20th and 21st of November, 2007.

I have nothing much to do here in Mayapur. I wonder around a bit, wondering about what to do, and during my wondering on the 19th of November, an adventure hit me in the face and swept me off my feet.
I was walking on the gravelly road disecting the housing complex in mayapur, and I noticed a moderately stressed out american performing a curious combination of bustling purposely and wondering aimlessly with that particular flavor of having somewhere important to go and not knowing how to get there. I stopped to help her and she blurted the story of her day--
"I'm going to puri and the car's not here and I have to pick up this girl before we go and she's waiting for us and I don't know how to tell her we're late and I hope we catch the train and I don't know how to get a new car and we have two extra tickets and you can come if you want."

Sure! I'd been wanting to go to puri and now the oppurtunity was in front of me.

to be continued....