: arming, Saturday, January 25,1986
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WASHINGTON - From a
window of one of India’s best
trains, a departing passenger looks
down on the holy city of Varanasi,
a glorious distant sight sparkling
in the rays of the rising sun.
The traveler sees the sun-gilded
ghats broad steps on the banks
of the Ganges River and the
spires of the city’s thousand
temples.
The splendid view is deceptive.
Nothing that is holy in India is
considered dirty, but Varanasi, up
close, is one of the filthiest cities in
the vast country.
An Indian medical student, on
his way to the Ganges for his ritual
bath, tells a visitor that he will
immerse himself in the water,
ignoring the floating corpses of
goats, monkeys, and an occasional
beggar. “It is a question of mind
over matter,” he says.
Splendor to Squalor
A railway trip across the Indian
subcontinent, from Peshawar,
Pakistan, to Chittagong,
Bangladesh, is a study in con
trasts; from splendor to squalor,
from rugged mountains to flooded
plains, from steam-powered,
narrow-gauge trains to swifter
wide-track diesels.
The excellent train out of
Varanasi, for example, contrasts
with the night train from Agra to
the holy city. It is filthy, even in
first class. It has no bedding, food,
or water. Hot cinders blow in its
windows.
The Indian Railways system is
vast. It transports 10 million
passengers a day over 38,000 miles
of track, employs 1.6 million
workers, and uses 11,000
locomotives.
The railway is the primary
reason the huge, problem-plagued
subcontinent manages to operate,
Paul Theroux, author of a best
selling book, “The Great Railway
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by Inin: contrasts of people, pieces
Bazaar,” writes in National
Geographic.
India, he writes, is one of the
world’s greatest railway nations,
in the number of its trains,
stations, and long-distance
travelers, and in the economic self
sufficiency of its rolling stock.
Most Roaches and Rats
The rail system excels in
negatives as well, with the most
cockroaches, the most rats under
platforms, the most forms to fill
out, and some of the dirtiest
sleeping cars.
“In India,” Therous writes, “the
railway is not merely a way of
going to and from work, but rather
a solution to the complex demands
of the family’s life. Birth, death,
marriage, illness, and religious
festivals ail require witnesses and
rituals that imply a journey
home.”
It’s easy to identify long-distance
travelers in India. “They are
heavily laden and always carry a
big steel trunk.” Journeying
families “sit on it, sleep beside it,
use it for a table, and when their
train draws in, they hire a skinny
man to wrestle it on board.”
On one leg of this trip, Theroux
sat across from an Indian who was
on a two-month home leave from
his tedious job abroad. One of the
two months, the man said, he spent
on trains, riding up and down the
country.
Pakistani tempers were frazzled
by months of drought when
Therous began his trip near the
base of the Khyber Pass. When the
train pulled into the station at
Peshawar, it was pitch dark and
the temperature was 110 degrees.
The travelers were craggy-faced
Afghan refugees, said to number
more than 3 million in Pakistan.
By the time the train reached
Lahore, the capital of Punjab, the
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weather was cooler, and scattered
monsoon showers had begun. At
Amritsar, scowls caused by fear of
drought changed to smiles as the
skies blackened and opened up
with the first powerful rain of the
monsoon. (Theroux made his trip
before violence involving Sikh
separatists broke out in Punjab.)
At the eastern edge of India,
Theroux writes, “The monsoon
that beautifies and enriches the
countryside made Calcutta ugly
and almost uninhabitable. Rain in
India gives all buildings,
especially modem ones, a look of
senility. The streets were flooded,
there were stalled cars
everywhere, and people waded
among the drowned dogs.”
“Toy TrahT Trip
After leaving Calcutta, however,
Theroux experienced one of the
most scenic segments of his
travels on the so-called "toy train”
from New Jalpaiguri to Dar
jeeling.
The narrow-gauge mountain
railway, loaded with passengers
and joyriders,' passes through
valleys and hillsides that are
“open to the distant plains, and so
the traveler on the toy train has a
view that seems almost unnatural,
it is so dramatic.”
The wonder of the ancient train,
like the wonder of much else in
India, "is that it still operates,”
Theroux concludes.
“Indian is a complex place. The
phones seldom work, the mail is
unreliable, the electricity is
subject to sudden stoppage. There
are numerous natural disasters,
and there are 700 million people. It
seems almost inconceivable that
this country is still viable, and yet
there are times when one gets
glimpses of its greatness. Near the
end of my Indian journey I decided
that India runs primarily because
of the railway.”
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Most animals need to sleep or rest every day lust as you do Some
animals are long sleepers They don I have many enemies They are
usually predators that hunt other animals for food Other animals are
short sleepers They must stay awake to watch out for hungry enemies
thatuould like to make a meal of them
Below are pictures of fwe animals and five interesting sleep facts
Draw a line from the animal to the fact that fits it
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SLEEP
A Usually sleeps in a hole in the
ground hut may sleep in a tree
B Crawls into a den and sleeps
away most of the winter But unlike
a true h'bernator if something dis
turbs if or if the weather warms up.
it will quickly wake up
C Usually sleeps three or four
hours at one time May sleep stand
mg up or lying down
D May sleep up to lb hours a day
E Needs to be so alert that it never
goes into a deep sleep It just takes
short naps
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