There are just 12 hours left in my train ride. It started on Monday night in the valley below the Himalayan foothills. There, in the million-person city of Dehradun, I said goodbye to my auntie and uncle.

Two nights and one day later, I will arrive in Kolkata (Calcutta).

At times, my train compartment feels like a circus. Each stop treats us to a parade of personalities. Masculine individuals in makeup and saris board the train and ask for money. They are hijras, India’s so-called third gender. Some are male-to-female transgendered women, others are hermaphrodites — but many live on the margins of Indian society. We give them money and they bless us with a wave of their hands.

Railway employees and others walk through offering chai, meals, and snacks for sale. Boys and men pass through our compartment asking for money while displaying the stumps where a hand or foot should be. A disabled man drags himself across the dirty floor, begging for change.

Not all trains are this chaotic. India’s railways have a multi-tier system, with as many as five or six different levels of service. At the top? Express trains for the business class and relatively wealthy. At the bottom? “2nd Class Unreserved” — a free-for-all where lower-income and last minute travelers can pay as little as a couple hundred rupees ($4-$6) to travel one thousand or more miles.

Depending on what level of ticket you purchase, you get to interact with a different slice of Indian society. This time, I’m traveling “Sleeper Class” – one up from the bottom. I have a reserved bunk, and I’m sharing my cabin with all sorts of people.

21 year old Ankush is enroute to Varanasi, where he will take a battery of tests in his application to be an Indian Air Force pilot. An older gentleman, Abdul Jabbar, earns 150 rupees ($4) a day laying cement foundations. He works for months at a time outside his home state, and he’s making a rare visit back to West Bengal to see his family.

And against all of this is a backdrop of giggles and chatter: a gaggle of teenage girls and boys traveling for a series of singing performances.

One of them asks me what my caste is. Then she asks me to write down my biodata — an Indian catch-phrase for the kinds of information shared when considering a potential match for an arranged marriage. I’m not sure who she is asking for.

I wrap myself in the blanket my auntie gave me. Sleeper Class means BYOB – bring your own bedding. It’s getting cold, and I have one more night to sleep through before my train arrives in Kolkata.

Learning a new language is like going into the same room, over and over, and forgetting which switch turns on the lights. Nope, wrong word. Nope, wrong tense. Nope, wrong gender.

But I do like the results of learning a new language – the glimpses into conversations that were previously opaque. Especially when the conversations are between those of my own ethnic background.

It isn’t exactly fair to say that Hindi is a “new” language for me. I spent a good part of my childhood studying Hindi at the University of My Parents in Modesto. I spent a couple more years studying during my undergrad days as well.

But I’m still far short of fluency. And fluency, or at least proficiency, is what I need in order to feel like I have a window into my own cultural roots. This means one thing: it is time to return to that school in the Himalayan foothills.

So today, I went to the New Delhi Railway Station to book my ticket to Dehradun — the final train stop before I catch that winding bus ride up the Himalayan foothills to Mussoorie.

Shatabdi.

Say it. Shuh-THAHB-thee (as in tis of “thee”). It is an express train that goes between major cities in India. Mine is a five hour trip between New Delhi and Dehradun. At about 500 rupees one way ($12), it is a train for India’s middle and upper classes.

Across the platform is the 2nd Class train for those of lesser means.

Those tickets are around 125 rs. ($3) each. They don’t have assigned seats or air-conditioning. The windows are open-air with bars across, though they offer a better view.

A friend who I miss dearly once told me that 2nd Class is the way to go if you really want to get to know the country. Lower income students, farmers, and others all share the open seats.

While the Shatabdi is a quiet crowd, things are supposedly a little more fiesty in buttoned down second class. For my next series of train trips, I’ll be starting on the other side of the platform.