On the Friday before Holi, Sweta, Kavya, Nikita, and I sat in the Centre for Environment Education office furiously typing on two documents. Both were reports on the UNESCO Greening Education Partnership (GEP) which we had been planning to send to UNESCO by the end of the day, but nearing mid-afternoon, it became clear to us there was still a lot of writing and review to be done.
We eeked out as much office time as possible before escaping for a bit to become dusty rainbows in the courtyard at Centre for Environment Education, where other offices were celebrating Holi by covering each other in colors. Sweta, Programme Director for the Climate Change group where I work, needed cajoling out of the office — while Kavya, Nikita and I had gone out to briefly play with the rest of the CEE offices, she stayed in on a phone call until another colleague came to cover her in a heaping handful of bright purple, a vibrant reminder of the spirit of the holiday.
That evening, I had an overnight Indian Railways train to Jaipur, where I was to meet my mom and sister, to see a new city and celebrate Holi together. After playing colors at the office, we concluded the workday with a mission: finish the two reports as quickly as possible without jeopardizing the quality or clarity of our work.
This diligence and playfulness were the reason I was rushing to the Asarva Railway station across Ahmedabad. I ran from work to have a futile shower in my friend’s hostel room, in which only about half the color came off of my body, before booking an Uber auto and making sure the autowala knew my train was leaving at 8pm, the exact time Google Maps said we were estimated to arrive.
When we arrived to Asarva, I jumped out of the auto, yelling out “Thank you bhaiya!” as I careened around the corner to see the train gathering speed to pull out of the station at a chase-able albeit increasing speed. I had both set myself up for success and someone must have been rearranging the stars for me that day: I had reorganized my computer and some heavier belongings from my tote to my backpack (to make it easier to run with); I had never been to Asarva Railway station before but there was only one platform; I had chosen online payment for Uber so I didn’t have to worry about getting change; the last car of the train had its doorway wide open, with sturdy handlebars on either side, perfect for grabbing while running at a near-full sprint.
I was completely out of breath as I swung myself up into this last car, not realizing it wasn’t a passenger car at all, but of course the car for the two caboose engineers who would take shifts all night monitoring the journey through Gujarat and into Rajasthan. After lightly scolding me that I should have arrived earlier and boarded the train as normal, they asked me where I was from and how long I’d been in India, among other questions I was happy to answer. We had time for a nice conversation because I had 20 minutes before we arrived at the next station, where, at the two engineers’ recommendation, I would get down from the train, sprint up the platform to my car and get back on the train, bypassing the headache of trying to squeeze through the aisles of 16 overpacked-holiday-weekend train cars to get to my seat.
Once I got to my cabin, I made my bed in the provided white IRCTC sheets, and pulled my computer out to work on the UNESCO reports once again. The adrenaline rush of just barely catching the train must have fueled my determination for the writing, because I joined the team back on the two Google Docs, watching the colorful cursors typing and editing away until 2:30am, at which point I finally closed the computer and fell asleep, my head heavy against the dense railway pillow.
You can read Part 2 of Sydney’s blog post here.
