Around India in 80 Trains (41 page)

As train 65 began the ascent from Jammu, white-walled stone houses rushed the other way, then began to linger far behind until nothing but stepped hillsides rose on either side of the windows. The Shivalik mountain range loomed all around, its humps lining the horizon, the edges trimmed with trees. Soon the train began to rattle over gorges furrowed by rivers of chocolate milk and balding riverbeds piled with rock. Here plans were afoot to build the world’s tallest single-span bridge over the River Chenab, 35 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower, but this terrain was not easy to manipulate. It had a mind of its own. Soft mud often caused tunnels to collapse and water seeped into drilled sections of the hillsides forcing frustrated engineers to abandon projects. The land soon levelled as rain began to attack the carriage on all sides, fighting its way in through the shutters. Puddles grew on the seats and the sound of drumming on the roof heralded the arrival into Udhampur.

‘No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain …’

I leant out of the doorway as the Himalayan rain peppered bullet holes into my skin. The carriage cleared as passengers fashioned umbrellas out of carrier bags and leapt like frogs around the puddles on the platform. Hopping down I wandered towards the end of the station. No trains were due in so I took the liberty of sliding off the platform, landing with a splat where the rain had mixed mud and stones into a paste of Rocky Road ice cream. Shouts and waving arms tried to catch my attention, but I squelched on and eventually came to the final sleeper. So far I had travelled on over 28,000km of this track and this was where it ended, as though cut off mid-sentence. Satisfaction flooded my stomach. It was long overdue, but much had happened in that time and not one moment was tinged with regret. A pincushion of green peered up through the mud and I tugged at the tuft of grass, putting a few blades into my pocket. Train 66 shuddered and heaved out of the station, shaking its puddles awake. I looked out across the hills where sunlight had begun to crack through the clouds, beaming down like spotlights lighting up the Earth.

Back in Jammu I passed the time in the company of another omelette sandwich before boarding train 67, the Duronto Express back to Delhi. While scanning the carriage for my seat, my eyes flicked over a figure in a blue shirt, clutching coffee and fighting to keep his eyes open. What used to be Passepartout looked up and waved, his eyes shadowed by two grey crescents.

‘Where did you get to?’ I asked, squeezing in next to him.

‘Anusha put me on a train that got to Udhampur at about 5am. I don’t think I actually slept at all, but this lovely man invited me to his house for breakfast and a shower and then he took me around Udhampur.’

‘That’s kind of him.’

‘Yes, but I paid for it. I think I spent most of the day being shown his wedding photos.’ He laughed. ‘Just about every photo of him was fine, but his poor wife looked dreadful,’ he squinted, then shut one eye. ‘She looked like this in almost every picture, yet no one, not even the photographer seemed to care and shoved the whole lot into the album. Poor woman. Anyway, where were you?’

‘Eating omelette sandwiches and playing on railway lines.’

Shortly before lights out we both took to our berths and slept soundly, arriving in Delhi the following morning.

After shots of hot coffee and a wash in the station toilets, we ventured into the no-man’s land of Paharganj to check emails. Touts hovered but ignored us. The virgin-fresh sheen of our first visit had dulled to a matted-haired, ali-baba-pant-wearing state of cliché and they knew better than to offer us tickets for trains, or their well-rehearsed performances. Wedged into a booth in front of a computer with a sticky mouse and a desktop covered in minimised windows offering sex with Lakshmi and her friends, I found an email at the top of my inbox.

‘Dear Monisha,

I have already forwarded your message to Supertendent of Police, Dist. Tinsukia, for arrangment of your accomondation and other journey programme. Be assured your all arragement will be done and some one will be at Tinsukia Railway Station to recieve you.

thanks and best wishes, Sanjeev, Adil and Rohit
.
’

In India things happen when you least expect them, but sometimes, just sometimes, you cannot ask for a better time.

18 | Bullets over Brahmaputra

If there is one thing South Indians relish, it is declaring their superiority over North Indians. Wedding-Crasher-Bobby had launched into a tirade of scaremongering while driving us around Chennai the first day we arrived in India.

‘I swear … you’ll find it awful,’ he insisted, plucking rapidly at the front of his shirt as it stuck to his chest. ‘Baaaas-tud I swear …’, he cursed, as a cyclist swerved dreamily in front of the bonnet, then braked and banged it with his fist, ‘… if you think Chennai is bad, man, you should check out the North, particularly if you go to West Bengal and Assam. What all you’ll see, broken trains and such dirty people I tell you,’ he added, winding down the window and chucking out an empty packet of Marlboro Reds. ‘Animals … pukka junglees.’

Junglee
is one of my favourite words: a Hindi word that literally means ‘jungle dweller’ and conjures up images of Mowgli-types with uncombed hair, scratching themselves and foraging in bins for half-eaten kebabs. Needless to say, North Indians are nothing like this, but in turn will readily describe Southerners as a bunch of snobs. Indians are deeply prejudiced. They will not admit it, but paradoxically, they are proud of it. While North Indians are classified as brash, undignified and vulgar with wealth, Southerners are deemed bookish, backward and black—wholly undesirable in a country where Clarins White Plus face cream is advertised as ‘the magic wand you have been waiting for’.

After Bobby’s warnings about the Northeast, its trains and its people, I was nervous by the time I arrived in Siliguri. It is a boisterous junction town connecting Bhutan, Darjeeling and Assam, well-known for its Hong Kong Market which specialises in imported goods and Delhi-made items stamped with ‘Made in China’. Long before branded goods had found their way into mainstream India, most electronic items were snuck in through this corner and the majority of wares are still illegally imported.

A night rickshaw ride took us through the market, which was hung with tracksuits, earmuffs, cross-eyed dolls and wicker baskets plump with fruit that glowed under hurricane lamps. While waiting at a red light, a rickshaw broke free from the pack and veered towards a no-entry. Not quick enough, the driver was collared and slapped repeatedly by a white-gloved traffic cop, who then let down his tyres as further punishment. His passengers were left standing in the middle of the road holding their shopping and looking for any takers. So far, the Northeast appeared no different from the South.

The following morning, we hailed another rickshaw to New Jalpaiguri, Siliguri’s sister town, to catch the 11:45am Dibrugarh Rajdhani which was due to arrive at Tinsukia in Assam at around 5:30am the next day. Anusha had booked Passepartout onto the same train, but could only find him a ticket in third-tier, while I was up in second. Fortunately, we were separated now only by a pantry car, rather than several states, and were content to nip back and forth to keep each other company. Down in coach B9, he appeared happy enough, engulfed by singing children, curious children, large mothers and indifferent fathers, so I picked my way back to A2 where my family for the next 18 hours seemed relatively docile.

In the side berth a lithe gentleman lay dozing with both legs crossed at the ankle, sporting a futile attempt at a comb-over. His head was as smooth as a freshly shelled conker, but for six strands of overgrown hair that stretched from one side to the other like an Alice band. Underneath my berth lay a mummified figure whose face I was yet to see, while the other three berths were still unclaimed. The only other characters were policemen in khaki, who clumped along the aisles every few minutes carrying rifles. Each wore a long black bandanna, tied behind the ears and hanging down the neck, giving them an air of vigilante menace.

I climbed into my berth and began to update the list of trains. Intrigued by the elusive scrawl
Gorakhpur to Nautanwa
, I had taken train 68, the Gorakdam Express to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, only to find that the train to Nautanwa, on the border of Nepal, had ceased to exist. After many warnings from Bahadur, my cousin’s Nepali butler, of ‘No baby, Gorakhpur very bad, baby. Bad! Don’t stay, careful being!’ I had left immediately on train 69, the Assam Express to Siliguri. Passepartout, meanwhile, had decided to stay behind to look around Delhi and agreed to meet me in Siliguri so we could take the train together to Assam. We were now on board train seventy.

Pleased with the progress I leant down from my berth and gazed at the greyness outside the window. The Rajdhani was now getting into its stride, tearing along waterlogged fields of green, passing woods, lakes and mud houses with swirls of smoke rising in the yard. Feeling fidgety, I decided it was time for a wander. Swinging both latches round, I heaved open the train door, and was shocked by the thump of cold air. Crouching down I watched as endless paddy fields flew by. Unlike the South, the expanse was flat and ran to the horizon, eventually disappearing into a blanket of cloud.

The ‘too many people’ adage, a favourite of complaining Indians, held no weight here; the road running by the track was filled with nothing but ruts and puddles, and scarecrows crying out for company in the fields. Gone was the kaleidoscope of colour alluded to in tourist-board blurb. Northeast India’s contrast button was held down to the minimum, muting the scene to a palette of greys befitting of a James Joyce novel. A horn blasted through the fog, signalling entry into the first tea plantation. Plump and plucked to perfection, the rows of bushes stood no higher than my waist. Women wearing headscarves carried baskets like wicker drums on their backs, the straps fixed across their foreheads. Stony-faced, they watched as the train intruded upon their work. Embarrassed, I waved gingerly from the doorway and they broke into giggles, white teeth flashing like camera bulbs, and they waved back until we were out of sight.