Journey to India

It's difficult to sleep properly on a night where one has to get up very early to take a train or plane. I had set the alarm for 5:30 but did not sleep very well, having drunk too much tea and gone to bed by midnight. I kept waking up. Then Auntie Gulati woke me up at 5:25 anyway and I was mildly upset for missing that extra five minutes when I really was asleep. Having showered and packed most things the night before I didn't have much to do, so we left early for the Metro, which was running. I realized I absolutely had to go to the bathroom, and when I found myself waiting 9 minutes for the next connection, I was horrified at the thought of not being able to wait or to miss the connection. I did drag my three pieces of luggage up the stairs, and found out the toilets, maintained by some sacrosanct sounding society, were outside the Metro, so I had to drop in my token and run. The female metro operator was not only completely indifferent, but I am quite sure I heard them all laugh as I schlepped my belongings to the loo. The toilets were a disaster... the doors were rusty and ill fitting in this new Metro, the seat was dirty with muddy water, the flush did not work, you had to use a small piece of branch poked into a little hole where the handle used to be, to choose between low flush and high flush. I was immensely relieved that I did have some toilet paper, as the requisite little bucket and water tap were filthy. The floor was filthy too but I had no choice but to put my bags somewhere. It was preposterous, to be crammed into a dirty little toilet with three pieces of luggage, harem pants and down jacket, running late, with no sleep, to be unable to suppress nature's call, and at the same time be stuck deep in the cement bowels of a "new" Metro. Is this what I am reduced to when I try to hold my head high? It's funny of course, yes, in an absurd, film noir kinda way, but it was damn stressful, and the only thing that saved me was my steady breathing and refusal to give up. On the way back into the metro, I had to yell to wake up the security personnel who were fast asleep on the job of preventing terrorism in the fancy new Metro, a world class target for some ancient tribal feud. Perhaps these guerrillas could skip the security check and bomb the toilets?