Wagle Street Journal

The Kathmandu Post intro for the following story: Our New Delhi correspondent finds his bearings in a new city
[Here is the PDF version of the Op-Ed page of the Post dated 10 December where this article appeared after it was first published in Kantipur.]

I live in the third floor of the pink building on the left- Jangpura Extension

“B 19, Jangpura Extension,” I told the cabbie soon after landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi a month ago.

In 45 minutes we were in JE looking for the B block. Four minutes later, we were in B block looking for house number 19. And soon I was in front of the building whose third floor is rented by Kantipur Publications, the publisher of Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, for their New Delhi Bureau office and residence for the bureau chief. As the cab came to halt, I stood in front of what would be my home for the next several months.

I didn’t think that finding a house was that easy in New Delhi. The credit goes to the efficient naming and numbering system that makes the city navigation as easy as finding a dance bar in Kathmandu. The Nepali capital also has similar naming system in place, thanks to the European Union, but it is not as effective as it seems to be in Delhi, whose population cannot be compared with Kathmandu. Read more »

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Gopal Khanal, right, gave me a tour of India Gate, New Delhi’s one of the famous landmarks, last week. Here is my contact details in New Delhi.

Late in September I was inside a travel agency on the Nepal-India border of Sunauli. I wanted to go to Delhi and then to Mumbai and Goa. There were no train tickets available. “Okay, book me the ticket that is available,” I told the travel agent. “Anywhere. I just want to travel in Indian train. That’s it. I don’t care where the train goes.”

“Okay, there is a berth available in a train to Trivendram (the capital of the Indian state of Kerala, from Gorakhpur),” said the agent. “That too only in tatkal (immediate) service which means you have to pay extra charge.”

“Cool,” I said. “I’ll take that.”

He looked at my face and said these words in a consolatory tone: Well, you can always go to Delhi from Kathmandu in future. There is plane service (between the two capitals) and it takes time (which is about one and half hour). Read more »

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The day passed quickly. I was observing people and activities in the train compartments (dibbas). I moved around to feel the atmosphere. While doing so I was always thinking about my backpack that was on my seat. The luggage could be picked up anytime by anyone, I kept telling myself or so I was told about train journey in India by several people. That was the one problem of traveling alone in India, I concluded. You can’t roam around freely without worrying about the safety of your luggage.

I ordered food and that came at around 9 PM. I didn’t know how the seating arrangement worked during night when people needed to sleep. I kept wondering how that seat, the one in the middle of the three-layered berth, could be unfolded to turn that into bed. The moment of revelation came when a person unfolded it to make room to sleep. The three-layered ‘bed’ structure of the seats reminded me of the double bed of the hostel where I spent two years during my pre-primary days.

I didn’t have a blanket or the bed sheet so I just lied on the seat. It was so strange to sleep like that. The backpack was on the floor attached to the side of my seat where my head rested. I think I fell asleep soon….

…only to realize that I was shivering in the middle of the night because of the cold air that was coming in from the windows from the other side of the compartment. I took out the sweater from my bag and used that to cover my head and chest. I knew it wasn’t working but there was no other option. The other clothes I had carried were t-shirts and kurtas only. Somehow the ordeal was done with as the dawn broke and the sunlight started coming through the windows. It was another day in the train.

Next: Trivendram, the town of Dhoti

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Gorakhpur Rail Station

The north Indian town of Gorakhpur is not new to many Nepalis who go to many places of India via Sunauli border point. There is even a popular song that mentions Gorakhpur and the lyric goes something like this: “Aama rundai gaun beshi melai ma, chhora rundai Gorakhpur railai ma” [While mother is crying in the fields of village, her son is weeping in a rail in Gorakhpur.] The song must be talking about the plight of poor Nepali migrant workers who go to Indian cities looking for jobs. Thousands of Nepalis do a very difficult journey to find even more difficult jobs that pay little but demand a lot of labor. I had an encounter with a group of such Nepalis in Dailekh-Achham districts last February that was returning home carrying goods like a radio cassette player and cheap clothes. Here is the story that I wrote after following a boy to his home. Read more »

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It should have come up here yesterday but I was too occupied by other activities. I came back to Kathmandu yesterday afternoon. I went to office directly and assumed responsibilities (of talking about the trip with colleagues!). Then to home in the evening. Nothing more for now. I have to finish a story for Koseli today as it goes to press this evening. Then I plan to post more journals from the trip along with the photos.

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I arrived in Bombay yesterday morning…got off at Mumbai CST (railway terminal) at around 6 am. I saw a news kiosk that and bought almost all English language newspapers (and a Marathi one: Apala Mahanagar). I quickly found a guest house that was cheap. I threw my backpack, tried to sleep for an hour or so, took shower and got out on the streets of Bombay that were slowly becoming crowded. In the beginning, as I headed unknowingly towards Bombay Stock Exchange tower, I was kind of intimidated by the cityscape. It felt grand. The old colonial styled buildings were impressive I remembered walking on the streets of New York. The streets are wide and clean: I had expected the opposite. I walked around for about two hours…but the place started getting hotter. Soon I found myself inside a travel agency office that offered the tour of the city for Indian Rs 120. In half an hour I was in Gateway of India. By the time the tour ended at 8 PM, I had reached to some of the famous places of the city including Marine Drive to Juhu Beach. Other passengers curiously got up from their seats and ran toward the windows when the guide, pointing a house, said: Amitabh Bachhan. But I was interested in the beach and the towers, not where the actor lived. [More about Bombay in one of the next posts.) Read more »

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