Back at the train station I asked around to make sure I got on the right platform to get home, and found the saris, this time closer to the front end of the train- where I had found the first class ladies car earlier. Eventually the train came, and we all got in. No hurry to get in this time, the train waits at the end of the line for a little while before starting its journey back north. We all filed patiently on and sat.
After getting in, I went over to an empty row to sit down, but as I scooted over, the women on the other side of the train said “Stop! NO! It’s Dirty!” I moved back, and it took me a second to realize what they meant. Someone had pooped on the floor.
Why, poop bandit? Wherefore, poop bandit? Who would do this? Was it some very ill person who couldn’t wait? Was it some ill in the head person who thought that train cars double as public bathrooms? Was it a misguided, perhaps renegade, performance artist speaking out against social paradigms? Was it some revolutionary who was making a Marxist/anti-classist/anarchist/down with capitalism/up with the masses/political statement against the ladies of the ladies first class compartment? Who knows, but no one wanted to sit by it.
I went home. Sigh. If it was a political statement, the radical should have made a little sign explaining her (presumably bandit was female) ideology to stick in it, because as it was the message was lost on her audience. Unless the message was just that poop on a train is gross. We all got that.