The train didn’t go very fast. We we're ambling along and the engine kept breaking down. All the passengers we’re cursing in Tamil. A Tamil cursing is a treat for the chuckle muscles; a sound like a ripple of diarrhoea. But they had good reason to curse; the delay had thrown a spanner in their plans. But for one passenger; the man with no plan, the delay was an unexpected luxury - an opportune moment to see ‘track-life’ up close and personnel – with a magnifying glass. Train tracks attract colonies of people very much like shit attracts flies. These people (god knows where they come from) then proceed to build pokey little dwellings next to the tracks with ruddy walls and tarpaulin roofs. A whole economy subsists along the track – an economy fueled by the train passengers. When people travel they’re usually flushed with cash and more importantly, they're less frugal then normal. Almost as if travel releases them from some invisible force - we've all experienced it. A behavioural trait exploited by airport departure lounges and the dreaded Duty-Free cash blotters. For the families living along the track this is a blessing and their life-line; an artery.
It got me thinking about grander stuff. Life (you, me, bugs, aliens from Mars) will make a living wherever a living can be got. You can go to the most inhospitable deserts in the world and still find that you are not alone. Someone else got their first; like for example the obstinate weeds with tufts sprouting through a dune crack. There’s life eeking out an existence miles below our feet; feeding off nutrients from the rock surface and powered by the earths geothermal heat. Human life is no different. We're all trying to make a living and there is a living to be made off railway passengers.
I looked out the window and saw the strangest sight - children, girls and boys, the younger one's naked, the older one's wearing loin cloths with stubby noses, we're leaping off the train carriages carrying pitchers of water. On every station they'd rush in and grab water from the sink in the toilet compartment. Then there we’re the people crouched all along the railway line outside. At first I thought they we’re simply squatting and watching the train go by. But then I realized that they we’re shitting. All we’re facing the train, squatting, with their lungi’s covering their privy members, shitting unhurriedly, fouling the tracks. One curious group, a man, a boy and a pig we’re in a row – each shitting in his own way. There we’re some more dignified folk though: one fat man, clearly of professional high-brow stature, was squatted at a greater distance from the train, an umbrella was held up by his manservant and he had a newspaper on his knees – shitting.
There’s something fascinating about public shit holes. In Tibet, they have outdoor communal shit houses like pubs. These are nothing but a row of holes in the ground which you squat over (struggling to hold your balance) whilst your ass is whipped by the icy winds warmed by the Tibetan plateau. The experience is rendered more comic by the fact that you can chat to your neighbour (shit mate), perhaps discussing the price of bread, your favourite brand of toilet paper or the wind-chill factor.
I don’t know about you but for me toilet business is a deeply personnel ‘business’ – in fact if you think about it, it is the most personnel thing we do. Even more personnel then sex – which involves a willing partner. The anthropology of communal shitting is quite fascinating. Perhaps one day in Tibet, whilst straddling a shit hole, I’ll write a paper on the subject.
When I look back to that sultry train cabin though, I remember feeling mildly disconcerted and intimidated by the shit stirrers outside on the tracks all smiling at me; its not pleasant to be smiled at by serial defecators - or maybe they we’re grimacing? Bloody turd world.
