Around India in 80 Trains (34 page)

‘I thought this train only stopped at Jhansi before Bhopal.’

‘Yah, officially.’

‘So why have we stopped?’

‘Someone has pulled the chain.’

‘How do you know?’

He clicked his teeth with scorn. ‘I travel this route many times. It is unusual for a Rajdhani train, but sometimes these fellows who live in between stations will pull the chain. Train stops, they jump out and go home.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘So many people there are, who knows who pulled what.’

After a lie-in, I slid down the berth to find that my companions had saved an omelette sandwich and tea for me. Adil was flicking through the paper, reading a story about cohabitation and was shaking his head. In 2005 diehard Hindus had accused a Tamil actress named Khushboo of criminal behaviour for declaring in a magazine interview that no educated man would expect his bride to be a virgin. A recent ruling by the Indian Supreme Court had resulted in her favour, pointing out that even the deity Krishna had lived unmarried with his lover Radha.

Adil frowned, ‘I think this will work against women.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Cohabitation will give men an easy get-out clause. If they are living together then they have nothing binding. It will make it easy to leave a relationship, or men will start having casual relationships before they eventually get married.’

‘But most young people have relationships before marriage, they just hide it.’

‘How do you feel about living together?’

‘I have no problem with it. If you’re going to spend the rest of your life with someone you need to know what it’s going to be like. You don’t buy a car without test driving it.’

‘But what if they leave?’

‘If they leave, then they were probably always going to. Isn’t it better for them to leave before they get married, than spend a lifetime in an unhappy marriage?’

‘I see your point’, Rohit interrupted, ‘but I think that ultimately children will suffer if they are a product of those relationships.’

I took the paper from Adil and read the article. Most pertinent was that religion had played a positive role in the outcome of the court case. Rather than clamping down, citing archaic tradition, the case showed that even Hinduism was open to evolution.

I looked up. Around me bags were packed and bedding stacked.

‘We are getting off in Vijayawada,’ Adil announced.

‘Oh.’ I was disappointed by the desertion.

‘You must let us know when you would like to go to Ledo,’ Rohit said.

‘I will, I promise, that is so kind of you.’

‘It’s our pleasure, enjoy Chennai and Mysore and please be in touch.’

The train drew into Vijayawada and the compartment emptied. Looking around the bare berths, I wrapped the blankets around myself and sat by the window to finish my photocopied book whose page numbers had begun to jump back and forth at the crux of the story.

‘All train talk.’

The lady across the compartment was shaking her head at me.

‘Sorry?’

‘All train talk, lip service if you will.’ She waved her hand towards the platform. ‘They won’t do anything. Simply timepass chat. Nothing you will hear from them again.’

I nodded and began to feel foolish. Pulling my blanket over my knees, I smoothed the pages out and hoped desperately that she was wrong.

15 | Silk Sheets and a Wad of Human Hair

On the rare occasions when you find yourself alone in India, it is never for very long. Like a heat-seeking missile someone will appear by your side. While this can be interpreted as no more than a simple act of friendliness, the truth is that you are considered a walking opportunity. Less than a minute will pass before an attempt will be made to peddle wares, ask for money or pens, offer a ride in a rickshaw, extract seemingly banal information, or exchange contact details. Even if you are stranded in the desert, rest assured a boy will appear over the dunes selling bottles of water.

Boarding coach S4, I looked around at the empty compartment. No chained briefcases. No games of rummy. No babies rocking in makeshift cribs fashioned from saris. No important phone calls. No smell of fried potato and puris.

Nothing.

Nobody.

I flipped on the fan, which did little more than to flick clumps of hairy dust at the floor. At the start of the journey travelling in sleeper class at night ranked low on my wish list, but after the dust storms in Rajasthan I was now unfazed by anything that came through the barred windows: rain; wind; horns; roasted nuts in twists of newspaper; and upturned palms. I sat down and looked around. Had I boarded the wrong train? The Kaveri Express, departed from Chennai Central at 9:30pm and was due to arrive into Mysore Junction at 8am, leaving me plenty of time to find the Golden Chariot before its passengers surfaced from under their duvets. It was 9pm.

Within minutes passengers and their families began to stream in and out of the doors like an army of lemmings and I was joined in my compartment by Shiv. With his matching T-shirt and shorts, runny nose and right hand thrust into a bag of Lay’s, he resembled an overgrown 5-year-old with a moustache. Pulling off his backpack he drew his feet up onto the seat and offered his half-eaten bag of crisps.

‘You are from Chennai?’ he asked.

This was more like it.

‘I live in England. Where are you from?’

‘I live in Mysore only but I come home to Chennai every weekend. My canteen food is terrible. I need home cooking.’

‘Are you a student?’

‘I studied engineering in Mysore, but now I am working.’

‘What do you do?’

‘IT engineering. I live in accommodation with many others.’

‘Why don’t you learn to cook?’

He looked at me in disbelief. ‘Not possible.’

At university, budding Jamie Olivers were few and far between the boys I knew, but even the most culinarily challenged could manage beans on toast or a bowl of sweating pasta.

‘So when you get married your wife will take care of the cooking?’

‘There is that possibility but many girls are very independent now. We will have to look for one who is willing.’ He reached for my logbook. ‘You are studying?’

‘No, I’m a journalist.’

‘I would love to write. Really … doing something creative would be great.’

‘Why don’t you then?’

‘I have to send money to my parents.’

Heating a tin of beans might have been within their remit, but none of my contemporaries would have stretched that far.

‘What do they do?’ I asked.

‘Father is bus conductor, mother is with poor health. I must help them pay for my younger brother’s schooling.’

‘That’s very good of you.’

‘Why? That is what we do. Parents take care when we are young, we take care when they are old. That is life.’ He pointed at me. ‘I tell you one thing, you take my email address and we will be in contact. I will send you my poems.’

Shiv propped up his head with his backpack and closed his eyes as train 51 began to thunder through the outskirts of Chennai.

A burgundy train trimmed with gold stood at the furthest platform at Mysore Junction, waiting patiently for her residents to rise. The Golden Chariot, launched in early 2008, was a lesser-known member of the royal family, normally found in and around Rajasthan. She carries her guests through the Golden Triangle of the South, departing from Bangalore every Monday afternoon and travelling across Karnataka through Mysore, Kabini, Shravanabelagola, Belur, Hampi and Badami, ending in Goa before returning to Bangalore the following Monday morning. The seven-day tour largely comprises temples, archaeological wonders and World Heritage Sites, most of which are difficult to reach by regular trains without hiring taxis or suffering local buses to make connections between each destination.

After a hot shower and a rummage through the gels, foams, sprays and lotions lined up in the bathroom, my tan was now swirling down the drain. I lay swaddled in a towel with my feet in slippers, allowing the air conditioning to slip over my newly moisturised limbs—now two shades paler. Sleeper class was all well and good, but silk throws on twin beds and a plasma screen with a DVD player made for a welcome interlude. Voices drifted down the corridor so I got dressed and made my way to breakfast arriving in darned Ali Baba pants and a vest beaten to death on rocks, hoping a pair of pearl earrings would add polish to the getup.

Unlike her younger brother, the Indian Maharaja, the Golden Chariot looked tired: upholstery was balding in a way that no comb-over could conceal and smudges dotted the crockery and linen. The staff still beamed and bowed, however, fawning around the many Indian families with children who filled the booths wearing Bata sandals and baseball caps. Scouring the dining car for an empty spot, I joined an Australian gentleman and helped myself to his toast.

‘Did I miss much in Bangalore?’ I asked.

‘Not really’, he replied, buttering what was left of it, ‘just a lot of pro-India PR. You know, the usual, “look at our shops and malls and gorgeous hotels” and then some guff about how the Garden City has now become India’s Silicon Valley. A bloody shame if you ask me, was once such a tranquil spot.’

Patrick was at least 70 with thinning hair that curled beneath his ears, and a tan like a terracotta pot.

‘Are you travelling alone?’ I asked.

‘No, I’m not alone. I’m by myself.’ He speared a piece of watermelon. ‘Since my wife died I’ve only ever gone on holiday by myself. Best way to see the world. Went on horseback across Mongolia last year, and every other year I go back to the same spot in Ko Phi Phi. They know me so well now they save my favourite room for me. They’ve become like family.’

‘Don’t you sometimes wish you had someone you could reminisce over those times with?’

‘I’m telling
you
about it now, aren’t I? Trust me, the only way to get under the skin of a new place is by being free to come and go as you please.’

Like the Indian Maharaja, the Golden Chariot played the role of a cruise ship on wheels, setting sail at night while guests rocked between the covers, and docking at a new destination before they had the chance to stretch, take tea and wonder why their room was upside down. That afternoon a group of 30 boarded a coach to the Rajiv Gandhi National Park in Nagarhole, to spend one night at the park’s lodges. Once the old hunting grounds of Mysore’s maharajas, the park was built on the banks of the Kabini river where wild elephants curled their trunks around their young, sambar flinched in the trees and a number of big cats lurked in between bushes, none of whom felt compelled to confirm their elusive presence. As the sun sank on the lake, unrolling a tongue of gold that lapped at the edges, we returned to the main lodge, tailed by a number of langurs who sat on the walls, idling like a group of teenagers. They waited for the platters of pastries to be abandoned before bouncing in to help themselves, much to the distress of the staff who tried to deter Hanuman’s army while maintaining a façade of unflappable geniality in front of the guests.

Patrick took his tumbler of tea and went to examine a bunch of mini bananas that hung from the roof for guests to pluck, when I was approached by James Shakespeare, an 80-year-old beanpole wearing a sweater vest and Argyle socks pulled up to his knees.