Around India in 80 Trains (47 page)

After the 45-minute journey to Nampally, on the penultimate train, I wandered down to platform five where the Charminar Express was waiting to take me back home to Chennai.

Home. Chennai.

Those were not words I normally associated with each other, but before I had a chance to ponder, a dark-haired man with a pair of Oakleys perched on his head stopped by me.

‘Is this the train through to Chennai?’

‘Yup, the Charminar Express.’

‘Okay cool, I think this is my carriage but I’m not sure what W/L means.’

‘W/L means that you’re waitlisted. Can I see your ticket?’

He handed it over.

‘It’s only W/L 2 which means that you’re second in line so you should be fine. Check the list stuck up by the door to see if your name is on it, and good luck!’

I took a deep breath and made my way on board, finding my seat as a family of five entered the compartment bringing with them the strong smell of Mysore sandalwood soap. The parents fussed over a small boy in a pair of shorts as his younger siblings climbed over the seats and hid in the overhead berth. His mother turned to me, the lightness of jasmine lifting off her plait.

‘You are going to Chennai?’

‘Yes.’

‘Please ma’am, he is travelling alone. My sister is going to meet him there, but will you do one thing? Will you keep one eye on him?’

‘Of course.’

She took my hands in hers, which were warm and dry against my own and shook her head, pulling round her sari pallu that kept sliding off her shoulder. Its cold silk slipped across my bare knees as she turned back to her son.

‘Now this aunty will take care of you, okay? Be good for her.’

She held his chin between her fingers then kissed the tips before she and her husband retrieved their other two children from in hiding, and collected on the platform. Referring to me as ‘aunty’ would normally have made me chuckle, but for some reason it seemed right. After four months and 79 train journeys, these trains had become my home and its passengers my family. I moved up to the window and looked out as Hyderabad began to slip from view. Beneath the sound of the wheels on the tracks was a softer grinding. Had it always been there? I realised that this was the last time I would watch the edges of a city slide from my vision and the thought bored a hollow into my stomach that filled with sadness. For once I did not reach for my iPod to drown it out, or flick open my book to distract my mind. I got up and went to find the only place where I knew I wanted to be.

Sitting on the steps in the doorway, I looped both arms around the handrails. I adored being here, and even though it was not in tune with my new philosophy, I had grown rather attached and was going to miss it. The train was rolling at little more than a walking pace through the outskirts of the city. On the verge of setting, the sun was stretched out across rooftops spilling a papaya glow across the slums. I had always watched sunsets from the doorways but this time I finally saw the spectrum of tones blending from yellow into orange into red, ever-changing, before there were little more than a few sprays of pink across the horizon. My ears pricked up at the sound of gushing water and as I leant out of the door I saw a burst water hydrant at the end of the tracks shooting a jet into the air. As we drew closer I noticed that a man was sitting at the base of the jet—the embodiment of Indian opportunism: he had brought a piece of soap to the broken hydrant and was squatting on the wall in his shorts scrubbing himself all over and making the most of the free power shower.

If you give an Indian a chance he will take it. A history of struggle has instilled within Indians an inimitable instinct to survive, but with opportunity they can flourish. After four months of observations, conversations and first-hand experience, I realised that India is not shining—at least, not yet. The notion is an image, a façade built up by the powerful elite, who hope that if they shout it loudly and long enough it will drown out everything else, grab enough headlines and start to be true. A country’s greatness cannot be measured by its size, but by the standard of living of every individual. Pockets of the country are aglow, bathed in the light of gated mansions, malls and Mercedes headlamps, but like the passengers on the Lifeline Express, hundreds of millions still stand in the shadows, waiting for the clouds to part. But I had hope. I could see that the next generation would make the changes and encourage India to really shine.

And how did I feel? Deep down I knew when I left home that my parents did not think I would see out all 80 journeys. But I had. And I loved the fact that I did not want to leave. Indian Railways would always stay with me and I knew a part of me would stay with them.

As the Charminar Express swept out of the city it began to grow chilly and I leant out to allow one last gust of wind to catch my hair before swaying back to my seat. My waitlisted friend was now sitting in the opposite seat, still wearing his Oakleys on his head.

‘So you got on okay then?’

‘I did,’ he replied. ‘This is my first Indian train experience so I guess I’m going to have to learn the lingo.’

‘Don’t worry, you’ll pick it up as you go along. At least you now know what W/L means.’

I yawned and he yawned back, then glanced across at my book,
Answered Prayers
spread open beside me.

‘No wonder you’re yawning. Capote?’

‘Nothing wrong with Capote! I’ve just finished reading
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
on recommendation of a friend and this is pretty good so far.’

‘I’ve read
In Cold Blood
,
Music for Chameleons
and
The Grass Harp
but not
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
—I’ve seen the film, of course.’

‘I like the title of
Answered Prayers
,’ I held the book up, ‘and this illustration of Capote looking like Porky Pig.’

‘Well it’s called that because of a quote from Saint Teresa of Avila who said that more tears were shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.’

‘Avid reader?’

‘Maybe a little.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘I’m a sommelier.’

‘Where?’

‘Lake Tahoe.’

I glanced down at his wedding ring. The Indian in me was desperate to ask where his wife was, how old he was, what he was doing here and where he was going, but I held fire. The other part of me had no interest. At this moment this was just a sommelier with a mass of chocolate-brown hair, unusually dark blue eyes and a passion for books. The boy I was supposed to be taking care of had started to rub his eyes and yawn, so together we made up his bed, slotted away his backpack and switched off the light as he began to doze off. Once he had gone to sleep we began whispering like parents.

‘So this is pretty fun,’ he said.

‘What is?’

‘This train journey is like a sleepover.’

‘Don’t be fooled, they’re not all like this. The long ones can get tough.’

‘What’s the longest journey you’ve done?’

‘Forty-eight hours from Delhi to Kerala.’

‘Holy shit. The longest train journey I’ve done is the Amtrak from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It’s about 11 hours but it’s really beautiful—most of the track is surrounded by vineyards before you open up to the ocean and see pelicans swooping all over.’

‘In that case you’ll love taking trains here. I can’t promise you pelicans though.’

He made up his bed and drew the blankets up to his armpits before propping himself up on his elbow and turning to face me. ‘Yeah? Tell me your top three trains.’

‘Okay, the Mandovi Express which runs along the Konkan coast. You can hang out of the doors over the ocean and the food is fab—particularly the chicken spring rolls. Then Jammu to Udhampur, which travels over valleys and rivers around the foothills of the Himalayas. And then as far as swanky trains go, the Indian Maharaja was pretty special.’

‘Is that like the Palace on Wheels or something?’

‘It’s newer but takes a similar route through Rajasthan. I figured that there was no point in only jumping on the poverty bandwagon. I wanted to see the extremes of the railways.’

‘Train fan?’

I laughed. ‘I wouldn’t ever have called myself a train fan before, but I guess I am now. But more of an India fan than a train fan.’

‘Anyway I’ll let you get back to making notes.’

I shuffled under the covers, enjoying the rough tickle against my chin as the train rocked me gently from side to side. While flicking through my logbook a pressed orchid fell out from the pages. I recognised it from the Indian Maharaja. Digging around my purse for a pen I found a pinch of sand from Dwarka and the tuft of grass from Udhampur. As I wrote, I noticed the last of the mehndi from the Golden Chariot fading from my hands and was about to drift off when my companion piped up.

‘Hey, do you have
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
with you?’

‘I do.’

‘Do you mind if I take it?’

‘Not at all.’ I foraged around in my bag and produced the copy, which he slotted into a side pocket. He then pulled out a paperback of J. M. Coetzee’s
Disgrace
.

‘If you haven’t read it, you should.’

Thanking him, I lay on my back and closed my eyes, trying to fit in a few minutes of meditation before going to sleep. Earlier in the day I had found Fiona Lanes on Facebook and sent her an apology for the horrid letter. It was 14 years overdue, but at least I had told her how sorry I was. I had also received a text from Ben, congratulating me on completing the journey. We had stayed closely in touch after I left the Lifeline Express, chatting on the phone most days, and I knew we would stay friends once we were back in London. And lastly, Passepartout had called that morning to say he was on his way back to Chennai and would meet me for a Thums Up at Imthiaz and Sweetie’s kitchen table.

All was well.

Beneath the rocking of the train, the beat from my own body began to sound and I listened closely, unaware of the lights being flicked on overhead, the new family who had boarded and were now shuffling around, the babble of their voices …’

I awoke in the same position in which I had fallen asleep. Sunshine poured through the windows and warmed my face. I turned to the window and allowed it to heat my cheeks for a few moments before I opened my eyes and saw that the blue-eyed sommelier had gone. We had talked on and off for six hours and he had left without a word. We had exchanged books, but not names. It was perfect. Everything may be impermanent, but he would always be the blue-eyed sommelier from Lake Tahoe with great taste in books. I did not want or need to know any more about him or where he had gone. This was the beauty of train travel. Travelling companions come and go. Some stay for the duration of the journey, but others hop on, then hop off when they need to. We enjoy their company while they are there and we wave them off when they leave. We do not pine for them, or stay angry that they snored. We sit back, enjoy the scenery and wait to see who fills their seat.

People come into our lives and they always leave. But what counts is the present. Twenty years ago I had hated Chennai and its people, but the bad ones had left. The clouds that rained down upon my parents had moved along, and 12 years after losing touch with her, my brother had run into his best friend from that dreadful school, and was now about to marry her. Yet I had chosen to hold the old images hostage. The past was just a series of memories. Why ruin the present for what had been, or what may never be? As Phileas Fogg had said, ‘The unforeseen does not exist.’ It was four months since I had returned to India. In that time these trains and their passengers had housed me, fed me, carried me safely and given us the chance to become reacquainted. Now that I had learnt to see things as they really are, I could see that India was no longer a stranger to me.

I gathered together my bags, Coetzee and my surrogate son and waited in the doorway of the train. Sunshine bathed the biscuit-coloured buildings as the train sailed past the backs of houses, threading through the heart of the city. In the morning light, it was like seeing Chennai for the first time. At 8:30am the Charminar Express drew to a halt at Chennai Central. Pulling on my rucksack I put my right foot down on the platform and watched as my flip-flop snapped. After 80 train journeys and almost 40,000km—the circumference of the Earth—it had lost the will to live.

A plumper version of the boy’s mother appeared on the platform and waddled over, grabbing his wrist as his cousins danced around him, full of questions. She smiled and shook her head from side to side as I waved at the little boy and ambled along the platform. Departing trains hissed, clanked and sounded their horns, no more my call to prayer. Halfway up the platform I spied a bunch of men shoving in the doorways of a passenger train. They squeezed between each other, elbowing, arguing and jostling before they turned and saw me watching. Breaking into sheepish smiles, they waved from the doorway. The train began to sail down the platform and out of the station as I waved back and allowed the crowd to sweep me into its embrace.