One of the highlights of Michael’s and my trip to India might not have happened if Michael’s phone hadn’t died when we arrived in the country. You see, We had been planning on using internet access and Michael’s phone to make most of our travel arrangements, as it was turned on to function internationally. But inexplicably when we arrived in country it didn’t work, which meant that we needed to use an Indian Travel agent to book out travel.
Which turned out to be a very good thing, aside from the fact that he mentioned that there was a “toy train” that went to Shimla. Now, at this point you all know that Michael Loves Trains. The chance to see a small gauge train in action, winding it’s way through the Himalayas? We couldn’t miss it.
So shortly after we arrived in India, we were taking off from Delhi to Shimla, first taking a regular train, and then switching to a small gauge train. The small gauge train in India is an experience. With no AC, all the windows are open (something hard to come by in the US), and so are the doors in and out of the train. It’s switches are operated manually, and it functions with a manual system to keep trains from running into each other (which involves the passing off of symbolic keys).
Like the days of old, the trains connect together with a pin system, which means there are people that have to get between each car and drop a pin into the latching mechanism in order to connect them. Very dangerous. And because it’s a narrow gauge train, it can make tighter turns and and climb steeper hills than an normal train. So you occasionally got glimpses outside your window that looked like this:
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| Our Train to Shimla. |
Michael was beside himself with excitement, and spent the whole time with the camera in the train door, looking at everything. Now don’t get me wrong, seeing Michael happy is a lot of fun, but not being quite the train affectionado that he is? It got a little boring.
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| Michael looking out the window. |
So I pulled out my knitting.
And very slowly I became aware of this wave of… awareness that was focused on me. I saw a woman who was looking at what I was doing very intently. So I smiled and gestured her over. Very soon, with very little words between us, we were talking knitting.
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| Talking Knitting. |
Pretty soon, another woman had joined it (the mother of the seatmate across from me in the picture above), who had a little more English than the first woman.
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| Having fun with my knitting friends. |
And the amazing part was? We were coming together over a common handicraft. We had very little language between us, but we had the language of stitches, of knits and purls and yarnovers and decreases.
