India in Two Weeks by Train

by Neil Harris

 

The Taj Mahai in Bombay, one of the world's top hotels, provided a haven away from the constant pestering by beggars and street hawkers found in the surroundings of the 'Gateway to India'. Alas, my budget did not run to staying there, only to a lunchtime buffet in air-conditioned comfort.

 

In India there are times when life can crowd in on a traveller, and the chance to escape is taken with open arms. On one occasion I dived into a taxi just to flee the attentions of a particularly persistent beggar, a mother and her baby, determined to extract some money out of me.

 

For a person used to the ordered life of Southeast England, India can come as quite a shock. Luckily I had made other trips to Asia, so I knew what to expect. I had 15 days to see India using an Indrail travel pass. My intention was to see as much as I could.

 

The first day and a half was spent in Bombay, not the most fascinating city that I have visited. There are a few interesting buildings from the colonial period: Victoria Terminus, possibly the most ornate railway station in the world; the 'Gateway to India', built to commemorate King George V's visit to India in 1911; the list is not endless!

 

The most memorable aspect of Bombay is the people. Life in India takes place out in the open; modesty would appear to be the luxury of wealth. Washing clothes, bathing, cooking and other domestic activities take place in the street. The poor have no privacy. Beggars are everywhere; the sight of a ten year old girl running whilst dragging her crippled brother, he sitting astride an old skateboard, as she tries to get within begging distance, all for the sake of a rupee (about 2p), is enough to make even the most hardhearted feel generous.

I was booked on the overnight Rajdhani Express. My second class air-conditioned berth proved adequate. Indians have the capacity to make themselves at home wherever they happen to be, especially on a train. This can involve bringing an inordinate amount of luggage and being blind to fellow travellers' needs. Surprisingly, the train arrived in New Delhi only five minutes late.

 

The heat was oppressive, around 100F, as I went in search of a hotel. Fourth time lucky, I found a vacancy at a friendly hotel, Hotel 55, on Connaught Circus. Connaught Place was built in the thirties, as Delhi's equivalent of Oxford Street and Knightsbridge all rolled into one. It is still the main shopping centre of the city, but has the feeling of a market town, rather than the capital of the world's second most populous country.

 

Walking about requires concentration; how many capital cities have cows wandering around? The traffic seems to observe Brownian Motion, without actually colliding. Taxis, auto rickshaws, buses and the occasional private car, circulate around Connaught Circus at breakneck speed. Crossing the road requires forward planning and a fair amount of agility and luck! The centre of New Delhi, designed by Lutyens and Baker in the twenties, is spacious and worthy of such a large country. The view from 'India Gate', down the Raj path, to the Viceroy's House (now called the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the house of the President ) certainly conjures up the arrogance of the Raj and, by Indian standards, is amazingly clean and free of undesirables.

 

The midday train to Varanasi left on time. The totally flat Ganges Plain provided little in the way of a view, but did offer an insight into the vastness of India. The land between towns was extensively farmed, but no sign of a tractor, only human harvesters and buffalo driven plough. Why? I later discovered that the Indian government taxed tractors out of reach, to preserve jobs in the countryside and to stop rural depopulation. The train arrived in Varanasi, the Hindu's most holy city on the Ganges, at 0550. On time again, this could not last.

 

Varanasi has a population of around one million, but has the feel of a small town. It is located on the west bank of the Ganges, on which about fifty bathing ghats (steps down to the river) provide access to the holy waters for the faithful. There was the usual bedlam of an Indian city in the narrow streets, cows, cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws and the general population. I innocently passed an apparently docile cow, only to be head butted in the backside. Luckily I had some travel tissues in my back pocket; this probably saved me from any injury.

 

The de rigueur tourist trip in Varanasi is a dawn boat ride on the Ganges, to see the pilgrims taking their early morning holy ablutions. Unfortunately it was cloudy, so the promised perfect light for photography did not shine on me. Even so the trip was definitely worthwhile. The pilgrims go through their devotions, with apparent lack of interest in the boats passing within a few feet, and not noticing the clicks of overactive cameras. In between the bathing ghats are some cremation ghats (no photography allowed). These are on the go for most of the day, the remains of the bodies put into the river once burnt. Judging by the two bodies, one of a baby, seen floating downstream, the process is not always completed. On my second day I was due to catch the early evening train to New Jalpaiguri, a few miles from Siliguri, the starting point for the Toy Train to Darjeeling.

 

The train had to be caught from Mughal Sarai, about one hour from Varanasi. This trip was taken by auto rickshaw. These vehicles are three-wheelers with a small diesel engine. Cramped, noisy, smelly and with no noticeable suspension, they cannot be said to be perfect cross-country transport. The road was not only very busy with clumsy looking Tata lorries, but also rutted with bone jarring potholes. They say size isn't important; on Indian roads it is everything. Priority is decided by bulk. If a lorry is on your side of the road, it is up to you to avoid it. Luckily, we did!

 

Mugtial Sarai station showed all the chaos that is typical of India. Families were sleeping on the platform, child beggars after the odd rupee, sellers of everything from fresh nans to china ornaments, and one or two holy cows and mangy mongrels thrown in for good measure. This assortment produces a cacophony of sound that drowns out the occasional announcement in English. So, from my seat in the optimistically named first class waiting room, I sat awaiting the arrival of my train.

 

It never came! Nor did the next one, three hours later. The stationmaster suggested waiting for the next train, not due until 6.40 the next morning. I was resigned to spending the night in the waiting room I've known more comfortable sleeping arrangements, and better bedfellows than the huge rat that ran across the floor in the small hours of the morning. Needless to say the morning train did not arrive either. What to do next?

 

I hired a taxi back to Varanasi, driven by a Sikh (suicidal Singh ? ) who seemed determined to kill both of us. The horn is used excessively in India and usually means 'I'm overtaking, get out of my way'. The extraordinary thing is that people do. Due to lack of time, I could no longer get to Darjeeling, so I booked a berth on the overnight train to Howrah (Calcutta). This train turned up, thank goodness, and ran almost to time.

 

Just outside Calcutta the train stopped at a small halt. This was the cue for various pedlars to hitch a lift to Howrah, hawking their wares through the carriages. A street child of about ten, armed with a tatty brush, swept the floor, then expected to be paid.

 

The crush on the platform at Howrah was most unpleasant. Passengers were getting off, while others were desperate to get on; in India it's first come first served, the concept of queueing being almost unknown. A quick taxi trip took me to the Lindsay hotel, booked from the West Bengal Tourist Office at the station.

 

Calcutta contains some of the poorest slums in the world, poverty being everywhere. It also wins first prize as the most polluted city I have visited (worse than Bangkok!) The choking smell of stagnant diesel fumes sits heavily over the city, made more suffocating by the steamy heat of the monsoon season. I visited during the Puje festival (a Hindu holiday, similar to our Christmas) so at least the streets were relatively free of traffic. Alas, the museums and other noteworthy buildings were shut, although I did visit the Victoria Memorial, a marble tribute to the late queen, built by Lord Curzon at the turn of the century and designed to compete with the Taj Mahal. It certainly is photogenic, and well worth a visit.

 

The beggars in Calcutta, especially at the station, were as persistent as any I came across and in many cases the most deformed. It is a sobering thought that these deformities are often inflicted by parents to increase a child's begging potential. The best curry I've ever tasted cost under a pound in a restaurant on Chowringhee Road, Calcutta's main thoroughfare, the local speciality 'Mutton Malai'.

 

Time was running out, so I booked a berth on the Bombay Mair. This takes one and a half days to make the 2173 km trip to Bombay and alas, I had to travel in a non air-conditioned second class berth due to its popularity. I shared a compartment with an Indian schoolmaster kitted out in army uniform; he was accompanying 24 CCF cadets, an obvious throwback to the Raj. The journey brought home the vastness of India, and the poverty of rural life. That said, almost every village had a huge satellite dish, incongruously sited on the roof of a 'mud hut'. How exposure on television to an apparent 'better life' away from the countryside will affect the rural poor is anybody's guess. Could it sow the seeds of revolution?

 

The train arrived at Nagpur, an industrial city of over a million, just before dusk on the second day. The crush to get on the train was, even by Indian standards, quite ferocious. People pushing to climb into the second class ordinary carriages, a pincer movement both from the platform side and by clambering across the rails from the opposite side. I was thankful for the bolts on the door to my compartment, as the corridor became full of people singing and chanting. A 'not very nice' rather than an 'angry' mob: I gathered from my fellow traveller that they were untouchables, India's lowest caste, on their way back from a protest march. The mob gradually dispersed at stations along the line, leaving some peace and quiet for an overnight sleep.

 

The train pulled into the Victoria terminus in Bombay about 5 hours late, at around midday. The one thing Bombay is not short of is taxis. They are everywhere. How do they all make a living? Partly by never doing any repairs to their dilapidated vehicles (almost exclusively Ambassadors, based on the fifties version of the Morris Oxford). The state of some of them made one understand the prevalence of Hindu shrines sited above most taxi dashboards. I spent my last day and a half wandering around the city. One beggar, whose patch was near my hotel, had the ability to surround me, even though he only had one leg he moved with surprising speed. Usually for me my last minute shopping produced little in the way of bargains to bring home. Most Indian craftwork is very ornate, not to my taste. So ended my trip to India - not a holiday, but certainly an experience.

First published in VISA issue 20 (spring 1996).