Third class

I usually travel by third class in train. I'd make lofty statements like - 'that's where I see real people and have interesting conversations' etc. This Christmas weekend I deeply regretted my stupidity. Perhaps I should become a decadent capitalist that SRP keeps accusing me of. I tried to make it abstract by thinking about the sociological causes and implications of the filthy compartment and then pragmatically draped a newspaper and climbed onto my middle berth.

I woke up to the sounds of the peddler with his milk can early in the morning. SW, an American, raved about the 'small entrepreneurs' in third-class compartments when he was here last. I decided their enterprise has to be admired, after seeing him get off with an empty can in the next station and hop on deftly to another train going in the opposite direction.