TRAVEL
Genuine Hospitality Can Reveal Uncomfortable Truths
Unexpected encounters in restricted areas of Northeast India
A new cast of passengers, beggars, and vendors shuffled through the cars after our train pulled into the station. I bought a package of seasoned peanuts and chickpeas wrapped up in a page torn out of a children’s textbook to munch while I sat and took in all of the commotion around me. In came a chai wallah carrying his kettle and stack of paper cups, and then a small girl in tattered clothes doing cartwheels through the corridors for small change. I turned away and looked through the bars of the train window.
Beyond the station were crude orange and white concrete apartment blocks that in a few moments were displaced by the blur of moving jungle foliage and rice paddies. And soon after: homesteads with corrugated tin roofs and hanging laundry lines interspersed with the occasional crimson explosions of Malabar silk trees.
We continued onward through the verdant flats of Assam, drawing ever closer to the Naga Hills. It was thrilling to be on an Indian train once again, and I almost didn’t want it to…
