India

by Barbara Carey (India 1966-68) This essay was originally published July 2001 on PeaceCorpsWriters.org, and received the Moritz Thomsen Award in 2002. • “I DON’T UNDERSTAND what is ‘first class’” about this train car, my husband said. I looked around at the dirty, rusty old car, with bent bars on the open window, red betel juice stains on the walls, and the single hard seat in the small cabin. I looked through the bars to the bustling train station, with hawkers, beggars, food and magazine stalls, travelers, crying children, hungry dogs, and all the noise that went along with the bustling activity in the humid Bombay afternoon. I could smell the pungent odor that is always present in India — a combination of rotting garbage, sweaty bodies, and smoke from dung fires. The sights, sounds and smells were coming back to me after thirty years of being away. I suddenly . . .