Crazy Man on the Train

We got on the train from Trivandrum to Tiruneveli, and there were almost no seats left, Zelda sat next to a Man, and I was next to a man and his family, which was automatically uncomfotable. but then the man next to Zelda and Diagonal from me handed me a card, he did it so fast I didn't have time to not take it from him, so I looked at it, it said something about police acadamy, and something else. I just handed it back to him, after a while he touched my leg and said something Malayalam. this attracted the attention of the man next to me, and the two in the single seats by the window. He touched my leg again, and said something and the dad looks at me and gots slap him away and say "Don't touch me!" Hos sound who is probably 10 or 11 says "you have to fight". Then the other man tried to hand Zelda the card but by then we knew he was weird so she slapped it away. Pretty soon everyone sitting there is yelling at him, and the two men at the window make zelda and me take thier seats. after a few min they are screaming at him and some college kid comes down to our end of the train looks around, walks away and returns with 4 of his friends, (and a cell phone playing theme music) and they yell at him. (this is all in another language so I have no idea what is going on). Before I can even guess what it happening pretty much every man in the car is surrounding where this guy is sitting, blocking us. At one point he triet to get up , but they pushed him down and slapped him. Some kid standing next to me looks at me and goes, he's mental and drunk. No one speaks much English. at the next stop people are looking for police, but there aren't any. one of the men in the pile looks at us and says " you are our guests because we are Indian"

Eventually we switched seats with the "mental drunk man" and after a couple stops, three guys threw him off the train and gave him to the police. Our protectors asked us questions, Where are you from? Where are you staying? How are you getting there? the guy up in the luggage rack offered to buy us chai coffee.

They were all really amazing. I've never seen a bunch of strangers who don't speak the same language protect people like that. It was really awesome. When we got to the stop they told us we were there.

Its hard to know who out of the men are crazy and who are just being nice. Some of them are so sweet and willing to help and want to give you something, and help you find your stop but others are such jerks. You can never tell, and its hard.

It was weird getting back to Tiruneveli, I felt comfortable and like I was home. Jhansi made us chicken noodle soup that night. It felt good to be home.