Sandals that walk

by Marianne HEREDGE (France)

Making a local connection India

Travelling by train across India from Siliguri to Delhi, the train was waking up slowly after a long night rolling across the Indian plains. Waking to the noise of people hawking and getting up, I eased myself down from the top berth, taking care not to fall from swaying ladder. Not wanting to intrude on the family eating their breakfast, I looked around for somewhere to sit. The adjacent lower berth that ran by the window had just one person sitting there. I asked the man if the space beside him was unoccupied. He nodded that it was free, so I sat myself down. It did not take long for me to take off my sandals so I could swivel round, sitting cross legged so I could look out of the window. Facing the man who had done the same, it did not take very long to start making the usual small talk. His English was fairly basic, but as long as I spoke slowly and clearly, we could understand each other without too much difficulty. He told me that he had been to Siliguri, where I had got on the train, for some training and was now returning home to his wife and daughter. I introduced myself as being a tourist who had come from Nepal via Darjeeling and was now on my way west, to Shimla. When a tea boy came down the aisle, balancing a flask of hot water with a basket overflowing with tea bags, paper cups and sugar I asked him if he wanted to join me for tea. He ordered two cups in Hindi and when I tried to pay, waved me off brusquely, pushing a few rupees into the chai-wallah’s tin box that was in the basket. I thanked him and we discussed how Indians now drank the most tea per person in the world, beating the British who have lost this claim to fame. I laughed at how Indians must drink many more cups of tea as they were so small compared with the much bigger mug sizes I was used to. The hours passed quickly as the train passed the flat countryside. He showed me a picture of his wife – a housewife, and his daughter – a student. Then as the train started to slow down, he bent down to put on his shoes and mumbled that this was his stop. As the train lurched to a complete standstill, passengers heavily laden with bags and suitcases started jostling along the aisle to get out. He stood up and very formerly offered his hand. I stood up as we shook hands and said our goodbyes, exchanging comments on how nice it had been to chat. As soon as the train had started off again, it seemed a good time to visit the toilet. Looking under the berth for my sandals, I could not see them. Bright blue, they should have been fairly obvious. Thinking they might have been kicked somewhere ignoring the dirt, I bent down low to check under the adjacent seats. It was not long before my search was noticed by some young men from along the carriage who joined me to help look for the missing sandals. Within minutes everyone was looking under their seats until eventually a pair of dusty, plastic sandals were held up. ‘Whose are these?’ called out one of the men. Everyone looked up at them blankly. No one owned up to them. Offering them to me, the man suggested, ‘They must have belonged to the guy you were sitting with.’ My first thought was ‘What a cheek!’ After chatting for hours, he had brazenly walked off in my sandals. Then I had to laugh. He had seemed such a nice, ordinary guy too. I was a bit disappointed, as not only were they new, but they had been very comfortable sandals that I had bought recently in Kathmandu a week before. I was grateful however, that that he had left his battered old plastic sandals as otherwise I would have been arriving barefoot in Delhi. When I tried them on, they were clearly at least a size too big.