The Kannyakumari Express carried me from Kolkata down the east coast of India to Madurai, consuming two nights and one day on the train (39 hours), and traversing some 2,200 km. Britain’s greatest legacy to India is the railway. Today, largely unmodified from its original version, Indian Railways does a respectable job running the network, which is fundamental to the Indian experience. In place of personal space on an Indian train is a sense of camaraderie among the passengers. Strangers with little in common but their destination cuddle up on short benches during the day, touching one another’s feet, and sharing music, newspapers, and food, and at night they snore each other to sleep. Snoring is an upsetting aspect of train travel, an almost recreational disturbance, similar to the belligerence of horn honking that characterizes Indian streets.
The Sri Meenakshi temple in Madurai was uneventful, so early on I declared it a portrait day. Portrait photography can be a great use of the mid-day, when zenith light is useful for little else. After working some folks around the temple, I took a rickshaw cruise to the flower market, the vegetable market, the silver market, and the banana market, none of which were proximate. I like to beat up the rickshaw guys on the front end and pay them some extra scrap at the end. Everybody wins: they feel like they earned a tip, which they always do, and I feel charitable.
