The-World-Noticed-Us
The stainless-steel doors looked modern and out of place against the building’s tired-looking facade.
A sheet of pink printer paper was taped to one of them.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Dani grabbed the handle.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered as she pulled it open.
“I never wanted us to come here.”
Then we stepped inside.
~
The airport line didn’t move.
Clothes hung from open office windows, lifting and falling like flags in the air conditioning.
A booth opened.
Then closed.
A coworker stopped to talk to the attendant.
A vendor walked through the line carrying a pot of chai.
Someone waved a friend forward.
The line moved three feet.
Then stopped again.
When we finally reached the counter, the official took our passports and stamped them.
“Welcome to India.”
Half our day was already gone.
Outside, humid air wrapped around us like sticky blankets—warm and strong, almost floral.
I’d forgotten the smell.
Now it was unmistakable.
Taxi drivers followed us down the sidewalk.
“Taxi?”
“No, thank you.”
“Taxi?”
“No!”
We kept walking
Two men intercepted us at the lightrail station entrance.
One sat on an upside down bucket in front of the ticket machine.
The other leaned against it.
“Where to?”
I looked at my notes.
“Lok Kalyan Marg.”
“Two hundred rupees.”
He held out a hand.
He then took my money, inserted it into the machine, pressed the buttons, and handed me two metro tokens.
Then he pointed away from the trains—back to where we’d come.
“This way. Follow me.”
I looked at the signs.
They pointed downstairs.
He headed upstairs.
“Train?”
“Yes. This way”
He led us through a glass corridor going back to the road.
Twenty yards later, I stopped.
“Isn’t the train downstairs?”
He nodded.
“Yes. This way better. Come. Hurry.”
I looked at Dani.
Then we turned around.
~
At the station, I put my token into the slots.
The machine buzzed.
Behind us, commuters began pushing forward.
A security guard took Dani’s and tried it himself.
“No good.”
He pointed toward a glass booth.
The woman behind the window held out her hand.
I gave her twenty rupees.
She returned two tokens.
We continued walking.
The signs for the Yellow Line suddenly became blue.
Another gate and another ticket counter soon blocked us—six windows serving six different distances.
I joined the crowd.
Someone pushed in front of me. I stepped around him. Another reached across my shoulder. I put both hands on the counter and held my place.
The attendant looked at me, took my money, and printed another set of tickets.
At last, we entered the train.
~
Eight stops later, we stepped off the metro.
A busy boulevard stretched before us. It had wide sidewalks and grassy medians. Every hundred feet or so, we passed what looked like gravestones sticking out of the grass. In the distance, a short man in a solid purple shirt approached.
As we walked, Dani counted the ticket stubs still clenched in her fingers.
“One. Two. Three.”
She shook her head.
“We had to buy THREE metro tickets!”
“… All for just one journey.”
The man reached us as she slid them into her pocket.
“Namaste.”
His voice came out like a whisper.
“Namaste.”
He held out his hand.
“It’s nice to meet you. My name is Mohammad.”
“Caleb.”
I gestured at my wife.
“And this is Dani.”
She smiled.
He turned then and sped up his pace to walk alongside us.
“Excuse me, sir. Where are you from?”
“America,” Dani replied.
“Oh, America. I love Americans. Germans; Spanish; Australians.”
He paused.
“Not the British!”
“Where are you from?” I asked. “Are you from Delhi?”
He didn’t answer.
“What are you doing? No, um… what’s your occupation?”
“Construction.”
As we talked, we passed a group of barefoot workers mixing concrete in the sun.
He glanced at them, then at me.
“And your wife?”
“Healthcare.”
Nothing.
“… I uh, work at a hospital.”
“Oh, yes. A doctor.”
He relaxed and continued alongside us.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-three.”
“And when did you marry?”
“Uh, several years ago.”
“And where are you staying?”
“I’m not–”
He looked up.
“We leave for Udaipur tonight.”
“Oh! You have tickets?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry. We already have them.”
“Oh? Let me give you some advice, then.”
He moved a little closer.
“Most tourists buy tickets in advance, like you. But the conductor won’t let you aboard. You need to go to the Government of India Tourist Center in Connaught Place and have them make sure your tickets are okay for tourists. I can get you a rickshaw. This way. Not far.”
I pulled our train tickets from my pocket as we walked and turned them over in my hands.
WARNING: DO NOT FOLLOW THE ADVICE OF ANYONE WHO CLAIMS THIS TICKET IS INVALID
“Yeah … we’ll … be sure to do that.”
Mohammad stopped walking.
“I can’t stress this enough. You need to go to the Government of India Tourist Center in Connaught Place now and verify your tickets. Do this before you do anything else.”
I looked at the tickets again.
Then I folded them back into my pocket, and we continued along our way.
~
“I never wanted us to come here.”
My words still hung in the air as I waited for my eyes to adjust.
The office consisted of a large room with white walls and salt-and-pepper linoleum flooring. A stairway at the back led upstairs. An imitation-wood desk sat in one corner.
Four men lounged on a green couch against the wall.
A man sat at the desk.
Our driver waited near the door.
As we entered, the driver walked to desk and handed him our hundred-rupee note. The man passed it to another of his workers, and they all scattered up the stairs.
I approached the desk by instinct.
“Our rickshaw driver …”
I pointed to one of the men on the couch.
“He brought me here without my asking. And now, he has my change.”
The man then turned to us.
“Please, take a seat. Wait.”
His voice was soft. Almost gentle.
“My men will find it for you. In the meantime, how long will you be spending in Delhi, and where are you going next?”
“A few days.”
“And after Delhi?”
We didn’t answer.
“Is it Agra? Varanasi?”
He waved his hand.
“Doesn’t matter.”
He smiled.
“Some trains are for women, some are for men, and some trains are for tourists. You are American tourists. Even if you have tickets, you can’t get on any train that you want. Here. Let me see your tickets. I can change them to approved Foreign Tourist Quota trains.”
He reached out his hands.
Dani pulled away.
“Please, can you give us the change? We want our change.”
“My employees are looking. Please, sit. Would you like some chai while you wait?”
He reached for the phone, but Dani stopped him again.
This time, she spoke with force.
“Give us our money. Now!”
He looked at his men, then at us.
His eyes dropped casually to the tickets in Dani’s hand.
He stood and dug into the pockets of his gray slacks.
“There!”
He pulled out a crumpled fifty and twenty and threw them onto the table.
“Keep the change.”
Then he ushered us back through the stainless-steel doors and into the white blaze of Delhi’s heat.
~
That night I lay in the sleeper berth, swaying with the train.
Dani sat across from me. Her face was expressionless. Dirt and sweat covered her skin.
I opened a bag of chips. It was the only food I’d found all day.
“Want one?”
She shook her head.
“How did we get to this? To India, I mean.”
“It’s the next step, isn’t it? After Scandinavia. After Europe.”
“After China.”
I shook the bag.
“But that thing with the rickshaw today… and the guys at the station. Even this train was four hours late.”
I looked down at the chips.
“It’s chaos.”
Dani leaned back against the wall.
“We always say that.”
The train rocked beneath us.
“Tomorrow?”
She smiled.
“Tomorrow.”