My co-passenger is a nice African American lady who is a graduate student in psychology at the Loyola University, Chicago. Being a student of human psyche, she is very polite and hospitable but at the same time, very busy with her cute Dell net book all through the journey. So the time pass started with Anton Chekov. Its amazing, the way he started his story about four travellers in the Russian Steppes back in 1888 or so and is still able to evoke interest in this 21st century traveller about the ordeal and adventures of those Russians. He repeatedly describes the minutae of landscape and the subtle details of the demeanor of his characters in the hundred pages short story :), just like I see the ordinary details of this American countryside over and over again. Somehow, I find both the exaggerations quite interesting. Probably, trains force you to touch and observe these finer points of human and environmental characteristics.
I am amazed to see/explore this American countryside as its a respite from the overwhelming skyscrapers of downtown Chicago. Its much like planet Earth :), not much different from any of my long Indian train journeys. Infact, the landscape is exactly the same. Countryside shops and residences are quite humble as against the luxurious downtown apartments at Chicago. One eccentricity is the large presence of make shift homes, I guess they call them 'Caravans'. They are parked right in the middle of trees in bunches of a dozen or so. They have mobile bathrooms and then there are clothlines supported on the trees. Occasionally, I find a solitary nomadic Caravan parked in the middle of nowhere, like say, a forest along the river. He seems to have become disillusioned with even his fellow nomads. Seeing anything such, I wonder, just like Chekov Sir does, at the pupose and ordeal of a lone poplar tree planted strangely in the middle of the harsh Russian Steppes. But I understand that the gypsy is human, and so he is fickle, and so he is mobile, and hence is better off than the lone poplar tree.
Trains give you ample time to listen to people as they share their experiences and delve into their past with totaly unknown co passengers. Isn't it something quite inherent to being human, but this capacity gets overwhelmed and almost defeated in the modern societal nitty gritties. I always find these talks quite interesting. Here, at this cafe, aboard Amtrak train # 30, I have a couple of undergraduate students who met onboard and are quite excited to know that they are from the same university. There is a grey haired talkative writer who is very excited about his new book on Nuclear Disarmament, titled "Apocalypse Never". There are a couple of Mexican American kids playing around and they have no idea nor botheration if they are going to Chicago or Washington DC. There is an old lady from West Viginia communicating fondly, to the undergrad students, her experinces and then there's a bespeckled cafe manager who is eager to strike a conversation with all his clients. As he does a good job, I occupy a table here, over hearing conversations and looking at the head of my train as it rushes towards Washington DC.
