Around India in 80 Trains (30 page)

The bravado lasted for less than two hours before I bit into a piece of fried chicken and burst into tears. People were staring. Even more than usual.

Amritsar and the Golden Temple were so close, but then, so was Delhi. Here was another option. If I took a detour to Delhi, I could stroll about Lodhi Gardens, breathe for a few days and take stock of the situation, instead of wandering around strapped between two rucksacks, weeping intermittently like a hormonal suicide bomber. Pulling myself together long enough to hail an auto, I returned to Chandigarh station and decided to roll the dice and leave it to fate, seeing as it was so keen to take control of my plans. Within the next two hours trains were due to both Ambala—from where I could connect to Amritsar—and Delhi. An express train to Ambala drew into the station first and I scoured the carriages as it flashed past. Bodies jammed in the doorways stayed where they were as waiting passengers piled forward and contorted themselves around the protrusions of elbows and knees. Feeling a bit down was one thing, but a death wish was yet to embrace me. Stepping back, I allowed the train to move on and squatted on the platform with a bag of
murukkus
and a three-legged cat. Scouring the departure board, I could see that the Kalka–New Delhi Shatabdi was not too far away.

As the train pulled in, a force of determination swept over me. Like a woman possessed, I launched myself through an open door, banging my shin against the steps. Even if I had to pull a ‘Passepartout’ and sit on the laundry bags, or hide in the toilet, I was going to get to Delhi tonight. Wiping the blood from my leg with the edge of my scarf, I glanced around and went to push open the glass door.

It slid back.

Dark cushioned seats, wide enough for both me and my bags, beckoned me in. This was the executive class. Newspapers were tucked into the seat backs and tell-tale furrows from a vacuum cleaner ran along the carpet. LCD TV screens were due to be fitted to the backs of the seats, but the plan was shelved after an overhead satellite dish fell off due to high speed.

Most seats were taken, but the train was soon to depart and a few empty spaces remained, so I sank into the nearest. Backrests, footrests and reading lights were a novelty. I stretched my toes into the carpet and stared ahead, enjoying the new-car smell of the upholstery, slightly marred by the medicinal tang of magic markers. Across the top of the seats, a pair of dark eyes met mine and a head of brown curls tilted to one side with a slight frown. The lady looked away, then a few seconds later, looked back again. She seemed so familiar, as did the man to her right, but there was no way that they could be on a train in the middle of Chandigarh … or could they? As train 47 began to creep away from the platform, I leapt from my seat and pushed down the aisle as the pair pointed at me and jumped up from their seats.

Lynn and Chris Palmer were the parents of my best friend Jane, who lived in Cambridge. Lynn had the shiny eyes of a naughty schoolgirl and a toothy grin. She gave warm hugs, baked delicious quiche and always curled up on couches with her feet tucked underneath her. Chris was surrounded by a wild fuzz of grey hair and had not worn underpants since the mid-1980s. His hair often caused him to be mistaken for an eccentric Cambridge professor, which was his intention, as this presumed status gave him privileged licence to walk across the grass at King’s College. The Palmers were on an impromptu holiday with a group of friends and had just finished a week-long trip to Amritsar and Chandigarh and were to fly out of Delhi the next day. They seized me, giving me a joint hug and a mouthful of Chris’s ponytail. I had forgotten the power of a hug: the warmth of their hands and breath prompted a prickle of tears that I blinked back in annoyance as they both beamed at me, looking like two halves of Jane.

‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’ Chris exclaimed. ‘Janey mentioned you were in India but she had no idea where.’

‘This is our daughter’s best friend!’ Lynn announced to the group around the table, kissing my cheek.

I knelt on the carpet and debriefed them on the previous night’s events as Samsonite carry-ons were wheeled past.

‘Oh, what a load of bollocks. Can’t he talk about nice things like books and telly?’ Lynn asked.

‘I should jolly well tell him to bugger off.’ Chris added.

‘Well, I sort of did, or rather, I decided to bugger off.’

‘And a bloody good job too.’ Lynn giggled.

‘Good girl, now I suggest you sod off and have some proper fun.’ Chris squeezed my shoulder and I made my way back to my seat.

Just at the moment when I desperately wanted to see either my parents, or Jane, fate had handed me the nearest available combination of the two. Geographically I was no closer to getting back on track, but inside I felt that I had got my foot on the first rungs of the ladder.

My seat was now occupied by a gentleman wearing a navy turban, a pinstriped shirt and tan shoes peering out from under stiff cords. He was dressed head-to-toe in Jermyn Street splendour. His white beard was clipped under his chin and his moustache swooped out to the sides with the tiniest of curves at the ends. He moved across to the next seat.

‘Don’t worry, this is my seat but now that we’ve left, I doubt anyone else is coming,’ he said.

I thanked him and sat down, waving back at Lynn.

‘Friends of yours?’

‘Yes, I can’t believe they’re on the same train. I wasn’t even supposed to be on it.’

‘Life has a way of doing that …’ —I knew he was looking at my tear stains —‘when we need it most,’ he added.

He glanced across at my logbook, where I was adding the Shatabdi to the list.

‘It’s nice to see people keeping notes and writing diaries, it’s all lost now with emails and computers. May I see?’

He ran his finger down the list.

‘I remember travelling by train in the 1950s with my father. That was the golden age of train travel. Dinner would arrive at the coupé with our names on the plates. Certainly trains are now faster, cleaner and more purpose built, but that old glory has gone now. You must be having a wonderful time?’

Now was probably the worst time to ask me that question, but I knew once the storm had passed, that I would mean what I said next. ‘I’ve loved it.’

‘I hope you have not been travelling in executive class the whole way?’

‘Certainly not, this is the first time and it wasn’t even planned that way.’

The ticket inspector arrived and I panicked. I handed him my pass hoping he could find me a seat anywhere on the train. Thumbing through his lists, he looked up.

‘There is only one seat left on this train and it’s at the other end of this carriage. But don’t worry ma’am, stay here, and when the passenger boards at the next station I will ask if he will take the other seat.’ He scribbled on my pass and handed it back, moving on to the next carriage.

The gentleman laughed. ‘Is that some kind of golden ticket? You’re very lucky, even in executive class I had to book this three weeks ago to guarantee a seat.’

Foraging around the floor, he produced a carrier bag of magazines including
Newsweek
and
Business Week
and pulled out a copy of
The Economist
.

‘I don’t value Indian newspapers and magazines. Their articles are poorly researched and badly written, filled with mistakes.’ He started to flick through it, then closed the magazine.

‘May I ask you something? I hope you won’t take this personally.’

After questions from other passengers that had ranged from how much money my brother earned, to why I did not bleach my face and how I could allow my womb to remain so empty, it was safe to assume that the gentleman would adopt a more delicate approach.

‘Sure.’

‘What is Britain like now in terms of integration? Do you ever feel like you’re treated like an outsider?’

‘No. Never. Maybe living in London is different as it’s so cosmopolitan, but I grew up all over England and I can’t remember ever feeling anything but British.’

‘Were you never subjected to any kind of discrimination?’

‘Maybe called a chocolate bar once or twice in the playground, but my school and university friends were everything from English, Indian and Malaysian, to Iranian, Belgian and Kenyan, and then on top of that they were Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist and Bora Muslim.’

‘It’s very reassuring to hear you say this. I’m so pleased that Britain has progressed.’

‘I know my father faced battles in his career when they moved to England in the 1970s, but now he’s held in the same regard as his contemporaries.’

‘But you have never felt like a foreigner?’

‘To be honest, the only place where I feel like a foreigner is in India.’

He sat up. ‘Really? Why?’

‘Here, Indians make it a point immediately to draw attention to the fact that I’m an NRI. I had never even heard the term “non-resident Indian” until I came for a cousin’s wedding a few years ago.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, they constantly call me “angrez” or “you firangs”. They seem to think that Indians who live abroad don’t understand anything about the motherland. It’s almost as though because we “rejected” our homeland, we surrendered the right to have an opinion about India, or to come back and teach them anything they might not know.’

‘Give me an example.’

‘When I had just left university, I did a work experience stint at a magazine in Delhi. Initially they gave me copy to proofread, but as soon as I started to pick out archaisms and anything else that was incorrect, they looked put out. They ignored my changes and gradually stopped giving me work. I’d just sit there at my computer eating cheese sandwiches until they didn’t even talk to me anymore.’

‘Good grief.’

Outside the window the sky had darkened and the fields were already far behind. High-rise flats, graffiti and Uninor billboards began to whip past the window. We were approaching Delhi. The gentleman flipped open a beautiful holder and handed me his card. It was white with a gold embossed stamp of the four lions, the national emblem, beneath which was written in italics:

Ambassador of India
*

His Excellency reached across to a blank corner of my logbook and wrote in the names of two more trains that I should include on the trip. He wrapped the ribbon around the book and handed it back.

‘Enjoy the rest of your journeys, you have many left.’

Delhi’s sensory assault normally struck as soon as I stepped out of the carriage, but this time it was barely noticeable. Instead it welcomed me back in its muggy embrace. I allowed lungfuls of heat, laughter and dried fish to flood my insides. I knew now what I had to do.

But there was only one person who could help me do it.

Her desk was empty.

Looking up from a stack of papers, her colleague flicked her chin towards a door to the right and I wandered over to where a white coat was hunched over a desk covered in files. Feeling braver now, I rapped against the glass and waved as she turned.

‘Oh my God, again you’re coming!’ Anusha squashed her temples between her palms.

‘I told you I’d be back.’

‘Where’s your friend?’

‘Er, he wanted to go to Haridwar and Varanasi so we’re travelling separately at the moment.’

Anusha said nothing but shot me the same look my mum used when I told brazen lies about my afterschool activities. She yawned like a walrus and gestured for me to sit down at her desk, chucking a handful of forms at me.

‘Where are you going now? Make sure you are going safely if you are alone.’

‘Well, this is where I need your help. I want to go to Amritsar and then up to Jammu.’

‘Jammu?!’

‘Yup.’

‘Why Jammu? God …’’

I need to get to Udhampur.’

‘But the line finishes at Udhampur.’

‘Precisely.’

‘God … anyway I will give you seats on the morning Shatabdi to Amritsar. You will be there after lunch. But you come back to Delhi and I will give you tickets for the train to Jammu.’

‘You’re actually
asking
me to come back?’

She flicked her ponytail and laughed. ‘There is a good Rajdhani from Delhi to Jammu and I will feel happy if you take that. There are only four stops.’