I have been a big Wes Anderson fan for a long time, but that fandom is limited specifically to three movies: Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and the Life Aquatic.
That list rather conspicuously lacks The Darjeeling Limited, an Anderson movie about a dysfunctional family (as are all of his films) this time set on a train in India. I saw Darjeeling Limited in theaters when it was released in 2007, and was instantly disappointed in that way that only a teenaged superfan can be of their favorite artist's new work. I haven't seen it since, having immediately disregarded it as undeserving of a repeat viewing when there are 3 very good Anderson movies I could be watching instead. Still, watching 91 minutes of my favorite director's perspective on train travel in India leaves me with a few subconscious expectations.
One of the characteristic aspects of Anderson's movies are the stylized, color specific depictions. In the Royal Tenenbaums, the seedier cabs of New York are transformed into an fictional "Gypsy Cab Co."
In the Life Aquatic, the whole world is seen in sky blue and pale yellow. In Darjeeling Limited, trains are the same dreamy blue and yellow color scheme, as the rest of India is saturated in color. Because all ships in the Mediterranean are not exclusively blue and yellow, I did not anticipate how actual Indian trains would match up.
More thoughts after the jump...
Weird. The color scheme is the same. It really takes me aback each time we wait for a train crossing, because it feels like the lost train from the movie is sitting directly in my path, far away from the movie set it should probably be on.
So, in summary, the trains do look very similar from the outside.
Here is a scene from the movie that I found on YouTube. I only watched the first 3:00 minutes of it, in which the boys catch a rickshaw, get on the train, and go to their seats for tea.
Things I agree with:
1.Taking a rickshaw while Indians laugh, or in my case stare and take pictures of me on their cellphones, and some yell "Hello!" or other English phrases.
2. The exterior of the train is blue.
3. There is chai available on the train.*
Okay, here is everything that this movie is misleading you about:
1. The train station smells. Bad. And it is dirty, overrun by monkey gangs, and people sleeping and begging everywhere. The monkeys travel in packs of 15 - 30, and if you look them in the eyes they get mad. From what I can tell, they like train stations because there is a constantly supply of people with food, and all they need to do is work together to distract or frighten the people away from their food. Given a few seconds, a monkey will tear through baggage to eat or take whatever they want. It is more threatening than I could really expect monkeys to ever be.
2. The interior of the train is nothing like in Darjeeling Limited. In each rectangular division, there is room for 8 people: two stacks of 3 beds perpendicular to the hall, and a stack of 2 beds parallel to that walkway. The middle bed in the stack of three collapses, so three people can sit together on the bottom bunk, using it as a bench when the middle bed is not set up. The train is packed, and every seat is taken.
2.b. In fact more than every seat is taken. There is apparently a discrepancy between a ticket, which lets you get on the train, and a confirmed ticket, which guarantees you a seat. Even in the luxury AC compartment, where we were riding, we could not confirm all of our tickets despite booking months ago.
When we got on our train in Jaipur last Monday at midnight, we all went to our seats, but when 3 of our 4 boys went to the seat they thought were theirs, there was a family of 4 sleeping on that one bunk. Somehow the joint claim on the train bench was settled by taking turns sleeping 3 at a time (some of the family, some of our students). All seemed pleased with this conflict resolution - I admit, I wasn't there but everyone retold the story happily so it seemed to go okay.
3. There are limited bathroom facilities. Train bathrooms in the US are not the most luxurious experience, but usually you can expect a toilet bowl, toilet paper, and some sort of container to hold the bodily fluids separately from the bodies and the rest of the world. On Indian trains, the holding container is completely done away with, as is, in the eastern style stalls, the toilet itself. In effect, half of the toilets are aluminum grips with a hole onto the train tracks.
So either you balance very well while the train is in motion and aim for the hole, or you try to hold for a station, when the train will stop. Its starting to make sense while all of the train stations (and tracks) smell like pee - because there is pee on them.
Side note: We caught our train back from Haridwar on Saturday afternoon, and while in the station, we met the family that had shared with our 3 boys on the first train. All were happy to see each other! India is a big country, but it really is a small world after all. While we were stopped at the station and in the process of getting on the train, one girl from my program was using the eastern toilet on board... and slipped. Her whole foot when through the hole, and while she could drag her foot back up, her shoe was not so lucky. Thankfully, the buppa from the family of 4 that had bunked with our boys jumped down, crawled under the train, and saved it. (What?!).
4. Chai is available on the train. Men get on board at the stations and wander up and down the compartments once before getting off before the train leaves, and yell at the people. I had about 5 dixie cups of chai for 5 rupees each throughout my travels. (A staggering 10 cents in US dollars per cup). These guys roam the halls and yell "Chai chahiye?!!" (Do you please want chai?) in the morning, which is funny but also not the best alarm. It is nothing like the delicate personal delivery in the clip above.
All details given, let me just clarify that I absolutely loved traveling by train. It was so nice to see Indian countryside fly by, and I slept incredibly well as the train motion worked something like a rocking chair. I loved the train.
PS Shout out to Allie Ferguson who I know is reading this regularly, and who also definitely saw Darjeeling Limited with me in theaters.
That list rather conspicuously lacks The Darjeeling Limited, an Anderson movie about a dysfunctional family (as are all of his films) this time set on a train in India. I saw Darjeeling Limited in theaters when it was released in 2007, and was instantly disappointed in that way that only a teenaged superfan can be of their favorite artist's new work. I haven't seen it since, having immediately disregarded it as undeserving of a repeat viewing when there are 3 very good Anderson movies I could be watching instead. Still, watching 91 minutes of my favorite director's perspective on train travel in India leaves me with a few subconscious expectations.
One of the characteristic aspects of Anderson's movies are the stylized, color specific depictions. In the Royal Tenenbaums, the seedier cabs of New York are transformed into an fictional "Gypsy Cab Co."
 |
| This is not a real cab. |
In the Life Aquatic, the whole world is seen in sky blue and pale yellow. In Darjeeling Limited, trains are the same dreamy blue and yellow color scheme, as the rest of India is saturated in color. Because all ships in the Mediterranean are not exclusively blue and yellow, I did not anticipate how actual Indian trains would match up.
 |
| A promotional drawing related to the film. Note the color scheme. |
 |
| Real-life, actual train. Note the yellow guard rails. |
Weird. The color scheme is the same. It really takes me aback each time we wait for a train crossing, because it feels like the lost train from the movie is sitting directly in my path, far away from the movie set it should probably be on.
So, in summary, the trains do look very similar from the outside.
Here is a scene from the movie that I found on YouTube. I only watched the first 3:00 minutes of it, in which the boys catch a rickshaw, get on the train, and go to their seats for tea.
Things I agree with:
1.Taking a rickshaw while Indians laugh, or in my case stare and take pictures of me on their cellphones, and some yell "Hello!" or other English phrases.
2. The exterior of the train is blue.
3. There is chai available on the train.*
Okay, here is everything that this movie is misleading you about:
1. The train station smells. Bad. And it is dirty, overrun by monkey gangs, and people sleeping and begging everywhere. The monkeys travel in packs of 15 - 30, and if you look them in the eyes they get mad. From what I can tell, they like train stations because there is a constantly supply of people with food, and all they need to do is work together to distract or frighten the people away from their food. Given a few seconds, a monkey will tear through baggage to eat or take whatever they want. It is more threatening than I could really expect monkeys to ever be.
2. The interior of the train is nothing like in Darjeeling Limited. In each rectangular division, there is room for 8 people: two stacks of 3 beds perpendicular to the hall, and a stack of 2 beds parallel to that walkway. The middle bed in the stack of three collapses, so three people can sit together on the bottom bunk, using it as a bench when the middle bed is not set up. The train is packed, and every seat is taken.
2.b. In fact more than every seat is taken. There is apparently a discrepancy between a ticket, which lets you get on the train, and a confirmed ticket, which guarantees you a seat. Even in the luxury AC compartment, where we were riding, we could not confirm all of our tickets despite booking months ago.
When we got on our train in Jaipur last Monday at midnight, we all went to our seats, but when 3 of our 4 boys went to the seat they thought were theirs, there was a family of 4 sleeping on that one bunk. Somehow the joint claim on the train bench was settled by taking turns sleeping 3 at a time (some of the family, some of our students). All seemed pleased with this conflict resolution - I admit, I wasn't there but everyone retold the story happily so it seemed to go okay.
3. There are limited bathroom facilities. Train bathrooms in the US are not the most luxurious experience, but usually you can expect a toilet bowl, toilet paper, and some sort of container to hold the bodily fluids separately from the bodies and the rest of the world. On Indian trains, the holding container is completely done away with, as is, in the eastern style stalls, the toilet itself. In effect, half of the toilets are aluminum grips with a hole onto the train tracks.
So either you balance very well while the train is in motion and aim for the hole, or you try to hold for a station, when the train will stop. Its starting to make sense while all of the train stations (and tracks) smell like pee - because there is pee on them.
Side note: We caught our train back from Haridwar on Saturday afternoon, and while in the station, we met the family that had shared with our 3 boys on the first train. All were happy to see each other! India is a big country, but it really is a small world after all. While we were stopped at the station and in the process of getting on the train, one girl from my program was using the eastern toilet on board... and slipped. Her whole foot when through the hole, and while she could drag her foot back up, her shoe was not so lucky. Thankfully, the buppa from the family of 4 that had bunked with our boys jumped down, crawled under the train, and saved it. (What?!).
4. Chai is available on the train. Men get on board at the stations and wander up and down the compartments once before getting off before the train leaves, and yell at the people. I had about 5 dixie cups of chai for 5 rupees each throughout my travels. (A staggering 10 cents in US dollars per cup). These guys roam the halls and yell "Chai chahiye?!!" (Do you please want chai?) in the morning, which is funny but also not the best alarm. It is nothing like the delicate personal delivery in the clip above.
All details given, let me just clarify that I absolutely loved traveling by train. It was so nice to see Indian countryside fly by, and I slept incredibly well as the train motion worked something like a rocking chair. I loved the train.
PS Shout out to Allie Ferguson who I know is reading this regularly, and who also definitely saw Darjeeling Limited with me in theaters.
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