People on the train

One of the first things you noticed about India is the sheer amount of people. Considering its such a big country, it feels packed to the rafters.
I'm again writing this blog on a train, this time on the way to Pushkar. Every seat is full, as are the aisles, and a few peoples' laps. There is a boy who is casually leaning a centimeter from my head and the woman next to me has her hand on my knee.
In my polite Britishness I don't tell them to move. Besides..there's no space for them to. Anyway, the man next to me is unashamedly reading every word I write so I'm certainly boosting my readership. I hope you're enjoying this sir.
Perhaps this lack of space is the reason everyone seems so affectionate here. So tactile. If you spend your life in small spaces with lots of people I guess it isn't weird to have a stranger lean on you.
Actually having just finished reading The Jungle Books, and with my head full of wolf packs, man-cubs and The Spring Running it almost seems a little odd that at home I have a whole room to myself..plus the run of a barely inhabited house. When we were jungle people, living in caves the idea of that much space would have been laughable.
And here in this jumble of limbs, where strangers demand your personal space but offer you biscuits in exchange, you suddenly see how unnatural the London Underground is. Often just as packed but with no one touching anyone and everyone staring transfixedly at a poster for car insurance just above their eyeline.
But here in Animal India there are much more interesting things to see..and we all stare. At the rolly-pollying child who jumps up with hand extended. At the rude man, sprawled next to his beautiful, glittering and pouty wife: someone struck lucky in an arranged marriage and by the look on her face... At the transvestites who just walk onto the train, clap their hands and all the men throw money at them, uncomfortable and obviously not wanting to be confronted with such..unnaturalness.
A man spits onto the filthy tracks.
But back to the affection. And I'm talking about a specific kind of affection that you don't see at home: bromance. Men holding hands, lying on each other..it's quite a common thing here. You would think they were gay if they didn't casually say things to you like: "sex, you interested?" Perhaps it's because before marriage male-female relationships don't happen here? I don't know..
So a lack of Western reserve and anything resembling privacy has allowed people here to be very easy with one another. And for us, we try to throw ourselves into the culture but I'd rather not do that with a strange man's head on my shoulder. He obviously hasn't enjoyed the read as it appears to have sent him to sleep.