Indian trains are infamous for a reason

I would think that since I’m an old hand at dealing with Grand Central Station, I could handle almost any train station, but the Indian version is of a whole different breed. Uncle and Auntie recommended that I leave home by 6:15am for my 7:40am train to Khammam. (They also suggested that I take a cab so I wouldn’t have to worry about missing the train. The cab ended up costing more than my round-trip train ticket.) I ended up at the station almost an hour early, and I carefully checked the signboard that listed my train as departing from platform 00—a bit odd because I thought the platforms were numbered 1-10, but I had plenty of time so I didn’t worry. I wandered for a while and then camped out under a TV monitor that I thought listed the train platforms. Occasionally it announced an incoming train, but mostly it showed commercials from the Indian train association, including one of a motorcyclist getting hit by a train because he didn’t wait behind the gate at a train crossing. (This involved lots of screaming and projectile-like blood.) I waited until about 15 minutes before my train until I realized the TV wasn’t showing a platform number for my train. I raced to a different monitor, found the correct platform number and with 10 minutes to spare found my way to 5. I carefully checked my ticket, which said I would be in car D4. I waited by the pillar labeled D4 until the train arrived 5 minutes late. My fellow passengers included one of the shortest men but with the longest ear-hair I’ve ever seen: he looked about 4’6” tall but his ear-hair was a good 2 inches long. I thought it was odd that he was carefully unlatching the carriage doors as they passed while some young men had already grabbed a hold of the railings on the side of the cars. As the train slid to a stop, people began to push towards the cars, a bit odd since we had assigned seats, but perhaps, I thought, this was just the Indian way of doing things. I noticed, however, that the car in front of me did not say D4, but was labeled UR, so I turned to a young woman next to me and she told me that this was an “unregistered car.” I had been patiently waiting where it said D4 on the platform, but the car D4 was nowhere in sight. I started to rush towards the other end of the train, but because of the constant Indian crowds, I couldn’t rush very quickly. Up ahead I saw C1, D1… and there it was: D4! I felt a rush of relief as I stepped in the car, not caring that the woman behind me was persistently pressing her luggage into the back of my legs. I reached my seat, which was the middle seat on a bench for three, which in the U.S. would probably accommodate two (the average Indian seems about half the size of the average American so it works out). I did it! I conquered the Indian train system! We pulled out of the station 15 minutes later (only 20 minutes behind schedule).