Couple of months ago I had applied for re-issue of passport at the Indian embassy (New York Center). I had been tracking the status of the passport off and on and the website which had the tracking information was not very cooperative. In the middle my family had returned and my routine got so busy that I ended up having time only to check what time it was a couple of times a day.
Then I had an epiphany, well it was more of a scare, what on earth happened to my passport? I should have received it by now. So I went to the website again and checked and it said that it had been mailed to the FedEx office near my home where I was supposed to collect it. I called FedEx and they had no clue about the package, they asked me to wait a few more days. However I was sure it couldn’t take that much time and asked them to check the tracking number and again they did not have it. The customer support did not help and here I was in foreign land with no trace whatsoever of my most important document. Without this I can neither stay outside India nor return immediately, thoughts of my next course of action started flashing through my head and I didn’t even know where to start looking.
I took a few minutes and prayed to god, like I used to when the college results were awaited. Next morning I went online into FedEx website and put my account number and sent a very agitated message to the website support as I did not see the history of packages that went through my account. Finally by midday I saw some update on my account and I could find the tracking number. It seems the passport had come to the FedEx office and someone at the office did not bother to call me even though I had specially instructed them at the office that I will be receiving this package and they had entered my phone number in their computer system along with my account information. The package stayed there for over a week and then it was sent back to the embassy in NY. I called the embassy and there a man said he did receive it back and I am welcome to come and pick it up on weekdays between 3:30 and 5:30 pm. I was relieved and also very cross with FedEx, but filing a formal complaint will only jeopardize somebody’s job at FedEx, so I simply thanked god and planned my trip to NY.
The following day I took half day off from work and booked a train ticket to NY from my home in Pennsylvania. The high speed trains in USA are run by a company called Amtrak. They are no match for the TGV that runs in France or the bullet trains in Japan however they are not too slow either. I boarded the train at 12:00pm sharp. I had been on several local trains in the US but never on a long distance train and as I loved train journeys I was looking forward to this one.
The inside of the train looks a lot like the Shatabdi Express, there are two rows of seats, one on either side and each row has only two seats- one by the window and the other by the aisle. Seats do have numbers but since the train is never full, the passengers in coach class are allowed to sit wherever they fancy. I picked a seat by the window stretched my legs a bit and analyzed the interior while the train started moving out of the station. There is nothing very fancy except that there are electric outlets to charge laptops or cell phones and there is free wifi within the train. Some Amtrak trains have food service however mine did not although it was a 3.5 hour journey. I had prepared for this and was carrying some chocolates and fruits with me.
The train did not make much noise while it moved, there was also very little shaking or vibration. Throughout the 3.5 hours of travel, the only thing that kept me from looking out of the window was the blinking of my eye. The American countryside – especially around the train tracks is very different from India. There are small settlements that show up every now and then, the lawn is almost always green and well maintained, in fact everything is well maintained and aesthetic however I was not impressed. The feeling one gets while traveling in India is incredible, every little train station in India has its own uniqueness, we can see difference in people’s appearance, apparel, language and profession every 100 odd kilometers the trains travels but in USA it is not the case. The lack of drama and extreme attention to keeping things beautiful in USA also has its drawbacks, for me – I just got bored looking at the manmade stuff but at the same time I was thrilled by the natural beauty.
Continued in my next post. https://mouthshut.com/blog/fbbgplloom/Train-to-the-Big-ApplePart-2
