RE: TRAVEL

At first, on that first journey out of the city into India, I found such sudden politeness infuriating after the violent scramble to board the train. It seemed hypocritical for them to show such deferential concern over a nudge with a foot when, minutes before, they'd all pushed one another out the windows......

Through the sleepy night and into the rose petal dawn, the train rattled on. I watched and listened, literally rubbing shoulders with the people of the interior towns and villages.
And I learned more during those fourteen constricted and largely silent hours in the crowded economy class section, communication without language, than I could've learned in a month of traveling first class..........

We left the railway at Jalagaon, a regional centre that boasted wide streets of commerce and bustle......The aroma of fresh, highly spiced food stirred my appetite, but Prabaker urged my onto the bus terminal.......

During the following three hours of that perilous acceleration, we rose to the peak of a ridge of mountains marking the edge of a vast plateau known as the Decan.
With prayers of gratitude and a new found appreciation for the fragile gift of life, we left that small bus at a dusty, deserted stop that was marked only by a tattered flag flapping from the branch of a slender tree.

Within and hour a second bus stopped.

Excerpt from ' Shantaram ' by Gregory David Roberts