The full story...

Okay okay, I will now elaborate on the "jumping off a moving train" story a bit, for all those who were curious/worried/disbelieving/thinking I really am an idiot. So Paula and I decided to take the night train back from Rishikesh to Delhi, because I had to catch another evening train the next day, and wanted to be sure I would have time to run some errands in Delhi before I had to take my two day train to Chennai in south India. So we went to the station a bit early, by fluke of the bus that took us to Haridwar was empty and moved a lot quicker than we had anticipated. We went to the platforms and found the one that had our train number flashing on the screen over it, and hunkered down amongst the crowd to wait a half an hour for our train to arrive. After about 10 minutes, a train pulls up and we check the screen to see if it is ours, and it seems to be, and Paula said that sometimes they do arrive early and in that case, also depart early. So of course, we start frantically searching for our car number (both of them- we were in different sleeper cars), and fail to find mine but we find Paula's- and at this moment, the train starts to move. We scramble to climb onto the rolling train, bags in tow, and manage to tumble into the car in a jumble of limbs and luggage. After dusting ourselves off, we begin to search for Paula's bunk, with the plan that I'll just sit with her until the conductor comes to check our tickets, and can inquire to him about my bunk. After a few minutes of walking the gauntlet of stairs, rows of people on either side wrapped in blankets peering over bunks and hanging on railings, we find her bunk number. There is a man asleep in it. Okay, we think, he probably just passed out there and we'll have to use a different bunk. So we politely turn to some of the curious onlookers and double check that we have the right bunk number. The right car number. The...wrong train. Well, at this point, both of us are beginning to feel the slightest inklings of panic trickle to our stomachs. Does this train go towards Delhi at all? No, it goes the opposite direction, further north. Oh. Frantically trying to force our brains into action, we move to the end of the car, and then out into the area between the cars. Staring out the open door. Paula looks back at me and says "Do you think we should jump?" I say I suppose so; we have to get off the train and I don't want to be stuck in a random town all night waiting for the next one, and possibly miss my rather expensive train to Chennai the next day. We look at the ground, which doesn't seem to be passing by at great speed yet, and is still concrete at this point; not yet gravel or grass. Some of the people from the train have followed us out to the door, and are looking back and forth at us and the increasingly rapidly passing scenery; they start shaking their heads and repeating one word, not very anxiously- no no no no. Paula glances at me, hesitates for one instant, then leans out the door and as she disappears I hear "I'm going to juuuuuuuump..." thunk! I still have her heavy rolly suitcase in my hand, as well as my own backpack, so I put the suitcase in front of me, look at the ground, and then thrust the bag out in front of me into the passing air, my body following, refusing to let go of that damned bag, with an "I'm coming toooooooooooooooo...!" thunk. Skidrollscrapcrash. I tried to hit the ground running, but we were actually moving so fast that my feet were gone before I knew what had happened, and my head was what was connecting me to the ground, then my shoulder, then my nose and then the rest of my leg and hip. When I'm able to actually comprehend what is going on, I look over at Paula, who is in pretty much the same state as me; a battered crumpled heap. We look over to see a few people towards the station staring at us, and then to our other side, where we see we had missed the end of the platform (a bunch of poles and a wicked looking fence-aka, death) by a few metres. We look back at each other, barely able to understand what has happened, knocked silly by our fall, and begin guffawing so hard that we are completely helpless in our laughter for a good five minutes. Still giggling, we begin to pick ourselves up and assess the damage. Wheely suitcase slightly battered and broken. Bag of bananas liquified. Laptop still in one piece, amazingly. Bleeding nose, huge lump on head, Paula has a bruised and swollen wrist that looks like it might be fractured (but turned out just to be badly banged up), my leg is scraped and bleeding, and I can't move my right arm. Not too bad for leaping from a rapidly moving train, all in all.
In the end, we did catch our train to Delhi, spent an extremely uncomfortable cold stiff dirty night in sleeper class, with a bunch of hilarious guys who taught us silly card games and Paula dubbed "the master of cheating" and "the master of laziness", etc. I had wonderful spicy Indian breakfast with Paula, her friend, and her friend's family, then bummed around with my friend Kamal in Delhi and finally ran off to catch my train to Chennai. After a two day, rather uneventful and surprisingly comfortable train ride, I am now in Chennai with Miyako, in her beautiful house (which has an extra room nudge nudge wink wink might be coming back to live in India for a bit) going to the beach to help decorate her mum's beach house today, and Pondicherry together later this week. Everything else is still up in the air, coruscating delightfully there.