"The Rural Blur"

My favourite part about the long train journeys around India is something I've entitled "The Rural Blur." Standing at the doors of the train cars (which are normally open, with the outside world shifting past)

you can get an interesting look at India "behind the scenes," so to speak. India, as it is experienced by the traveller is often full of noise, crowds, colours, and generally, urban areas. From the doorway of a cross-country train ride, you get to see rural India in the midst of its peaceful stillness. It is a rare glimpse of the side of this country I have yet to really engage with. A group of men sitting on stools, smoking "beedies" together. A mother taking her children to their small shelter for bedtime. A single incandescent bulb, a campfire, or often no light at all during the late evening activities of farming villages alongside the railroad tracks. It proves to me that there are people with peaceful, unhurried lives. The world needs more people like that. I need to be more like that. My hands grip the support bars beside the doors, I feel the wind tearing at my beard, and I watch as these tranquil scenes fly by, often listening to the second half of the Weakerthans album, "Reunion Tour" (starting with the song "Sun in an empty room"). Put that on in your headphones and see if you can picture it.

The album finishes with a song called "utilities," and it has become a kind of prayer of mine:
"Got a face full of all this weather
smirking smile of a high pressure ridge
Got more faults than the state of California
and the heart is a badly built bridge.
Seems the most I have to offer
doesn't offer much.
Make it something somebody can use.
Make this something somebody can use."

As I head to Kolkata at the end of this week, that song may be playing in my ears, and that prayer will be on my lips. In the hope that when I reach that city of 15-20 million (depending on who you ask) I may be able to recognize my faults, humble myself, and be of some use to somebody, somewhere in that hectic urban jungle. May I have ears to hear, words to speak (when necessary), but most importantly, willing hands to serve. I know Eli wants the same. I'm so glad we're doing this together.