We took a taxi to Howrah Station, crossing the massive metal Howrah Bridge, criss-crossing the path of everyone who was out-and-about pushing carts and carrying trays and begging for rupees in the cooler night air. We would be boarding a night train, leaving Calcutta for the purple-painted Jharsuguda station, from which we would take a car to rural Sundergarh to participate at the pastors' conference hosted by Pastor Pratap and his team. But before any of that, my father knotted his handkerchief around his neck and gazed out over the roiling masses at the train station.
"This," he said, "is my kind of life."
And after thirty-some years in the mission field, traversing the hot stretches of India and Myanmar and Nepal, he is more accustomed to the crowd and clamor of another culture than the perpetually quiet and well-tended streets of Sweden.
Our names on the billboard validating our existence
Taken from my top-bunk roost. Note my happy cow socks.
I have noticed that early morning chai always tastes better on trains.
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