Yes I can! Dump my cramp for good.

Arjun's car needed a check- so this weekend we decided to take the Caltrain to San Francisco- destination Fishing Wharf and Hippie Hill.

If I had not got the cramp I did, we could have done both places. This is the one that comes from the head somewhere- and travels all over the left lower half. Been with me for a while and today is making me feel awfully..... cramped?

I did so want to check out the Caltrain, which I thought would be like our Delhi Metro and being able to say that makes me feel smug. I mean, there was the time when such trains had to be compared to the Tube, or the Kolkata underground- it's nice to have the apni Delhi Metro yardstick.

I remember my first trip starting from Dilshad Garden to Karol Bagh. The buzz was tremendous. Some of it of course must have been from the fact that Amma had arrived from Bhopal that morning, and was leaving that very night for UK-and I thought it was crazy to go shopping for a Pashmina, from one end of Delhi to another. We thought it might be easier to take the Metro- rather than drive 80 kilometres in the traffic.

The sheer size of that experience was overwhelming-people queuing up to buy tickets, crowding into lifts, up and down the stairs, pushing and pummelling their way into the train, maps and glow-signs, guidelines for changing from one route to another.

I remembered feeling completely rattled and so so inept. There was so MUCH to take in. And this when I consider myself a well travelled woman of the world kind of person, not exactly someone timid, from a sheltered background.

I expected the Caltrain to be a nerve racking experience. After all, I am in America etc. I was grateful to have Arjun with me, on my first trip.

I think the cramp must have got triggered on the way to the train station, and then we missed the one we planned to take.

There was hardly anyone at the station- a couple of passengers walked in at the last moment and the train almost chugged into the station to the sound of a kind of bell !!! Maybe 5 of us got in at California Avenue Station? All rather tame.

One of the passengers from Belmont who was rather friendly I thought, which I later discovered came from his having consumed some considerable amounts of beer, commented on the "crowd". He had was returning home, having attended a court case in which he was witness. It seems one of his drunken friends had opened up another's head with a baseball bat on another weekend.

It took longer by train to San Francisco than it did by road. And they say the traffic is bad.

The bus we took to the wharf from the Caltrain station was slower than the train. I can actually appreciate why someone like Arjun would absolutely need his own car. While the train and the bus are good to look out and see what is happening, they cannot be the way one can commute to appointments and negotiate tight work schedules in a startup.

The bus passed through the business district, and though Arjun clarified that San Francisco buildings are built lower than New York, I felt, even from inside the bus, a little ill, as it were. When Spider man swings from one to another, across the street, they look like toys. And the skyline is just pretty on my TV screen.

But these were really high, and I felt very conscious of my own five feet and two inches. The street between was clean, and really nice close up, but it felt dark and sort of dreary- and very very lonely and crushing to pass through them.

All I could think of were the twin towers crashing down, and the earthquake.

And this when we had started from home on a bright sunlit afternoon under very very blue skies.

I am so glad I have come to USA from the West Coast.

The wharf was great - blue blue skies, blue water, sharp winds, foam crested waves, white boat upon boat, parked very very close, the Sea Lions basking in the sun on wooden planks provided just for their convenience by a benevolent city in a safe area cordoned off to prevent them being disturbed, hoards of well turned out tourists - as there is no beach, people like to look good on the wharf.

Tried my first hot dog - but I think I will stick to fish and chips and clam chowder in future!!! And the baked desserts are my absolute favourites.


I felt the spirit of democracy and openness that I expect in California- in the way the black boys called themselves black and the whites thus. The need for being politically correct that I see in visitors to India from UK was missing.

I cannot imagine the Dalits or minorities in India doing something like this, laughing at themselves and their world.

The comment on society was hanging out there- and people were dealing with it. It did not look easy either, but the bitterness and violence was definitely bearable in the humour.

The performers on the pavements ranged from the lily white girls in their black tights; dancing something that looked very fused to me- fused as in bollywood and reality shows; to the blacks doing the break dance, making digs at the whites,browns and moneyed people.


Everyone looked like they were having a great time-but I could not help but feel some empathy for those who were collecting money for the performances. Although the beggars in India are distressing in the way they look poor, the performers on pavements are not easy to watch either. Just seems like a different platform to me- and a different style of operation. Neither is doing it for pleasure. They are all trying to eke out a livelihood, and the contortions are painful to watch- whether it be in Madai ka mela in Kanker, or Pier 39 in San Francisco.