Around India in 80 Trains (26 page)

In the courtyard children crouched in corners, showering the rats with goodies while they darted around, dodging lumps of sugar, scurrying into cracks in the walls. A wire mesh stretched overhead, protecting the temple’s tenants from low-circling hawks scouring the ground for treats. Keeping our own eyes peeled, we stepped around the clumps of marigolds, puddles of warm milk and jalebis scattered like broken bangles, searching for a white rat. It was considered good luck, auspicious even, if a white rat ran over a visitor’s foot. That these overweight murines were able to move at all was remarkable. A few lay flat on their backs, paws splayed out to the sides. Their cause of death was most likely coronary failure or an early onset of diabetes.

The photograph that the gentleman was pointing to was, in fact, not of the rats, but of a baby pigeon whose face was just visible from underneath a protective mother; the rat in the corner had simply given away the location. Back in the mid 1990s a roadside advert had asked why we never see baby pigeons, and after discovering this one in the temple, the answer was clear. Baby pigeons are one of the few young animals to make onlookers recoil in horror. The bird had the jaundiced hue of a Tesco’s corn-fed chicken, few feathers and an oversized beak. It is the only creature that looks old in its youth. However, to prove they existed Passepartout had snapped away, much to the annoyance of the mother who flapped her wings and nipped at the other pigeons who had ventured over to investigate the tamasha.

‘My name is Khanna’, the gentleman offered, ‘and you are?’

‘Monisha,’ I replied, putting down my book.

‘What are you doing going to Chandigarh?’

Khanna listened open-mouthed, as I explained the journey.

‘My, but this is wonderful!’ he said, throwing both arms up with operatic flamboyance.

‘And this makes you Passepartout,’ he added, rhyming it with ‘spout’.

He was the first person to make the immediate connection and I tried subtly to make a note.

‘It’s
Professor
Khanna,’ he stressed.

I glanced up guiltily. Professor Khanna was a retired military man from Jodhpur and a mechanical engineer who was taking a group of 22 university students on an industrial excursion to Chandigarh. He saw me look around for them and laughed, waggling a finger beneath my nose.

‘They are down in sleeper class where they need to learn to be tough,’ he said, flexing his biceps. He frowned a little. ‘You mustn’t write anything bad about India, many journalists do this and it’s not good. There is much that is very good. Don’t take photographs of villagers and snake charmers and all that sort of nonsense, that isn’t the only part of what makes India. Photograph the malls and their wonderful new buildings. Have you seen them? They’re incredible.’

The fixation with impressing developing infrastructure upon visitors to the country was beginning to grate, but it was all part of the ‘forward-thinking’ strategy that had engulfed the middle and upper classes. If I had wanted to see shopping malls and multiplex cinemas I would have caught the 20-minute overland train to Westfield at Shepherd’s Bush, not embarked upon a 40,000km journey around the country. After his cursory warning, the professor bounced back into spirit and asked Passepartout to run a slideshow of the luxury train we had travelled on across Rajasthan.

‘Ah yes, the Palace on Wheels!’ he exclaimed, pointing at the screen.

‘No, that’s actually the Indian Maharaja-Deccan Odyssey,’ I corrected. ‘It was launched towards the end of last year but it covers a similar route, taking in Ajanta and Ellora as well.’

‘But this is fantastic, I didn’t even know that all these trains existed. Now this is the sort of thing that Indians should be proud of and people should be talking about. How was the food?’

‘Excellent. Catered for by the Taj Group.’

‘And was it Indian or continental? Some of these tourists find it difficult to handle the rich food.’ He wrapped his arms around his stomach and rocked back and forth in mock agony. ‘And then they live on curd and bananas for the rest of the time.’

Outside the window the sky was beginning to darken along the horizon, and with the Thar Desert fading from view, entertainment was now focused on the inside of the carriage.

‘Have you been to Punjab before?’ Khanna asked.

‘No, first time, I’ve always wanted to see the Golden Temple and I’ve heard about a stall in Amritsar that does the best jalebis in Punjab.’

‘Ah yes’, he said, raising a finger, ‘the queue goes all the way around the shop. But you must eat them then and there when they’re hot-hot. And don’t forget the Amritsari fish and tandoori chicken.’ He paused and leant forward. ‘You aren’t vegetarian or anything, are you?’

Amused at the idea of Passepartout living on dal and chana, I shook my head. I was also desperate for non-vegetarian food. With the exception of the biryani in Jodhpur we had mainly lived off aloo parathas and packets of stale banana chips. Passepartout was also looking forward to bottles of Kingfisher, his only comfort after particularly gruelling days, though he had recently taken to carrying a small bottle of vodka in the pocket of his rucksack that he brought out before bed.

‘Oh-ho! Well, Punjabis love their meat and their rotis,’ Khanna said, gnashing his teeth. ‘Big strong Sikh warriors they are, lots of meat, lots of whisky, big tough men.’

All this talk of rotis, meat and jalebis was making us miserable. It was 7pm and we had had nil-by-mouth since around midday at the temple, swigging two warm 7 Ups and a bottle of water. Dinner would not arrive for another two hours at least and I was beginning to get nervous as Passepartout was starting to scrunch his toes, a sign of restlessness, which normally stemmed from hunger. In the last hour the train had barely stopped for more than a few minutes at each desolate station, so hopping out for a packet of Magix cashew biscuits was not on the cards. Suratgarh was the next station and a growing crowd was jostling to get off, so there was a high possibility that this was a bigger, food-stacked stop. A thud brought the train to a halt, but we stayed put and allowed the shoving on both sides of the carriage door to pass. Passepartout pushed back the torn curtain, cupped both hands against the window and peered into the murkiness. Every few metres crooked street lamps cast down spotlights that did little more than to light up the base of the lamppost, making it impossible to gauge the extent of activity on the platform.

A commotion was brewing in the doorway. A squat man in a tight red T-shirt was trying to balance a foil plate on his palm, his chubby fingers spread out. He was using his other hand to lift a bony boy up the steps by the arm and in through the door. The boy twirled around beneath his father’s grip like a Christmas tree decoration, clutching a golden-fried kachori to his chest. As both sandaled feet came to rest on the floor, he dropped it. The dumpling landed with a soft thud, leaving a sorry mound of ground dal and gram flour on the floor, which his father kicked to one side, spreading the mess all around the entrance to the toilets, and simultaneously donated a sharp whack to the back of his son’s head. At least there was food available.

Passepartout bolted for the door as I went back to reading
Two States
, the latest bestseller from Chetan Bhagat. The blurb was traditional fodder for Indian love stories. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy and they fall in love against their parents’ wishes. But Bhagat is somewhat of a tearaway, adored by twentysomethings and loathed by their parents. In this tale, boy likes girl, girl likes boy and they have sex when they should be attending lectures. Boy is Punjabi, girl is Tamilian and they know their families will never approve the match because money-hungry, classless Punjus cannot stand black-faced Southerners who eat curd rice with their hands. Bhagat’s previous three books were good fun and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So far,
Two States
was not rating highly. It all seemed rather a perfunctory conclusion for the reasons behind the Great Indian North-South Divide—not to mention generalising—but perhaps India’s internal racism was more straightforward than I had realised.

Passepartout had been gone a while, so I went through the usual motions of asking three different people what time the train was departing. By this stage in our travels I had learnt not to ask a question that could be answered with ‘yes’ as that tended to be the response and was invariably wrong. Nor did I rely on one person. Two people would always offer conflicting advice, and if the third produced an answer that neared either of the other two, then that was the answer I accepted. Indians also hate to be the bearer of bad tidings. So if a journey takes over an hour they will squint, bring their fingertips together and declare no more than 20 minutes.

Looking around for someone reliable, I noticed that the professor had vanished. He was either on the platform—in which case we were safe—or he was in sleeper class, checking on his students. Two elderly gentlemen in dhotis and white kurtas were sitting in the adjoining compartment, each with one knee drawn up to his chin. Both wore gold watches, glasses with thick black frames, normally spotted on media-trendies in Hoxton Square, and each had grown the nails of their little fingers to an unacceptable length. They would have to do. Their discussion involved loud and animated Punjabi which appeared to be an argument until both sniggered and clutched each other’s hands. Smiling gingerly, I waited for what looked and sounded like a lull in the conversation, tapped the gentleman closest to me on the knee and asked what time we would be leaving. He tipped his head to one side, placed his Freddy Krueger finger into an ear and shook it vigorously before answering: ‘Five minutes.’ He withdrew his finger and examined the contents before delving back in for a second round. On cue his friend piped up: ‘No-no, 10–15 minutes.’ The first shook his head in disagreement, but they soon ignored me and went back to their conversation.

None the wiser, and lacking the third-party assurance, I decided that, as Passepartout had been gone for almost 15 minutes, we should soon be on the move. Humming drifted up the carriage and the professor reappeared, content that his brood was behaving. He slumped in his seat, then pointed at the empty seat opposite me, fanning out his fingers like a kathak dancer, which loosely translated as, ‘now where is your friend?’

A couple of jerks announced that we were on the move, but before I had time even to consider a heart attack, Passepartout pushed open the door, out of breath, clutching a paper bag shaded with two oil patches. As we moved away from the platform, the ear-picker caught my eye and shot me a smug look. Passepartout sat down heavily, tearing the bag open in desperation, causing one of his two kachoris to leap out like a billiard ball and roll into the aisle. He leant forward, grabbed the runaway and wiped it on his T-shirt, offering me the other one. I declined. We had reached a sorry state of affairs if we were willing to eat food off the floor of a train.

Thankfully, dinner arrived early and I climbed into my berth and placed a copy of
Outlook
underneath the various foil containers. The train clanked violently causing the carriages to tilt awkwardly to one side. Rhythmically my dal and vegetable spilt alternate puddles all over my berth until I gave up and handed down the whole stack to Passepartout who was only too pleased to wipe up the remains while engrossed in an article about Naxalites.

Far too tired for anything cerebral, I set to work making up my bed, perching on the edge of the berth below and trying not to slip off as the train continued to lurch. We were due to arrive into Chandigarh at around 5am so 10pm seemed a reasonable time to call it a night. Through the curtains I could hear Passepartout and the professor discussing Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries. Wanting neither to indulge Passepartout and his vehemence against the Church, nor to be reminded of my poor performance at A-level history, I pulled the sheet up to my ears, plumped my fleece under my head and tried to ignore the pair of feelers waving through the air-conditioning vent. Less than a fortnight into our journeys I had established a rule not to look at anything in India too closely. If you did, you would never eat any food, drink any water, use the toilet, breathe the air from the air conditioner or cover yourself in blankets. Abiding by my own rules, I shut my eyes.

An ascending chime woke me with a start. I fumbled around to switch off the alarm on my phone and panicked. It was 4:50am and we were due into Chandigarh in 10 minutes. Sliding down the berth I shook Passepartout who was deeply asleep despite always complaining in the morning about how badly he had slept. Darkness filled the rest of the carriage, twinned with rumbling snores and the steady da-dum … da-dum … da-dum of the train. No phlegm-clearing. No clanging chai wallah. No bright lights in your face. Something was wrong.

Fishing around for my flip-flops, I picked my way down the carriage and found one gentleman sitting up in the dark, checking his phone.

‘What is the next station?’ I asked.

‘Chandigarh,’he replied.

‘Rajpura Junction’, came another voice, ‘train is delayed by two hours.’