The slow passage through India
In the first of a series of travelling the world by train, Stephen McClarence rattles around India
When people start complaining about trains being five or six minutes late, a five-word phrase comes to mind: “Inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.” It’s an apology my wife, Clare, and I have come to know well over the 25 years or so we’ve been visiting India. Intoned like a mantra by an educated female voice, it echoes from the public address systems at Indian railway stations whenever services are running late. It’s practically on a loop when swirling winter fogs cause long delays to the vast journeys made by many of the nation’s trains.
“The Habibganj New Delhi Shatabdi Express is delayed by two hours … The Hyderabad
Jaipur Express is delayed by four hours … The Firozpur Mumbai Punjab Mail is delayed by six hours.” Inconvenience caused is deeply regretted. We’ve never doubted it.
In India we travel by train whenever feasible — not generally on the luxury trains, whose carefully planned journeys deliver the subcontinental experience with cosseting comfort and efficiency. No, we love travelling on the everyday railway network.
For me, travel offers few greater joys than spending a few days on an Indian train. Watching the sun rise scarlet through the morning mist. Lunching on the sloppy curries in flimsy foil trays which we’ve ordered ahead, then climbing up to the top bunk and dozing to the train’s slow meditative rhythm.
After another curry for dinner, we make up bunk-beds with the sheets and blankets that are provided free. We sleep to a soundtrack of fellow passengers’ snores and whispered conversations into cellphones. And sometimes we wake with a start at 3am, when the train jolts to a halt at a station. We peer through the window at stray dogs running along the dimly lit platform and at sleeping figures huddled under heaps of blankets and clothes. And then we doze off again until the next scarlet sunrise.
The Indian rail network carries more than
23 million passengers a day. Sometimes at mainline stations, such as in New Delhi or Mumbai, we’ve waited on platforms so crowded that most of those millions looked like they were catching our train.
Indians are relaxed about such crowds. Families spread out shawls and sit down to share picnics of chapatis and curries they’ve brought from home. Businessmen roll up their jackets and lie down with their heads on their briefcases for a snooze.
Cows amble from waste bin to waste bin, rooting out food, while child acrobats may be performing. Once at a station in northern India, we listened to an old man sitting on the platform, playing music on a wooden flute to an audience of passengers.
People who have never travelled on Indian trains imagine they’re all tightly packed, with passengers perched on the roof or clinging to the sides. True, the cheaper carriages on mainline trains can be crowded, but in the airconditioned carriages, which many Westerners opt for, seats are booked ahead and guaranteed.
Reservation charts are pasted to the sides of the carriages. “Mr Stephen” and “Mrs Clare” have figured on many a chart, complete with our ages. If you don’t give it, it will go down as “99”.
Our most ambitious journey was 10 days from the head of the most westerly passenger line (at Okha, 160km from the Pakistan border) to the most easterly station (Ledo, in Assam, 24km from the Burmese border).
We covered 3,702km, taking in 600 stations, and could have done most of the journey on just one train, the Dwarka Express. We would have left Okha at around noon on a Friday and arrived in Assam, some way short of Ledo, on Monday morning. Sixty-seven hours on the same train: a challenge for the most passionate railophiles.
So we staggered the journey over five trains, stopping off to explore on the way. We watched the changing landscape drift hypnotically past the windows: the huts and haystacks, the processions of women in bright saris weaving their way across fields, small children with enormous satchels skipping home from school.
Train journeys like this are like time suspended — and offer time to think.
We generally travel in second-class, airconditioned compartments. First class is private, extremely comfortable and cheap by Western standards (R500 or so for an 805km journey). But it can insulate you from the sociability which is at the heart of Indian rail travel. Over the years, we’ve discussed Buddhism with maroon-robed monks, Hindu gurus with police officers and the bewildering pace of change in India with practically everyone.
One of our most memorable trips was on the Kangra Valley Railway, which winds its way past the Himalayan foothills. It covers 160km in 10 hours: the essence of slow travel.
It’s one of the lesser-known Indian hill railways; our fellow passengers were villagers rather than the tourists who (understandably) flock to the three best-known of the “toy train” lines — to Darjeeling, Shimla and Ooty.
If you can tear yourself away from the view, such journeys offer plenty of time for reading. Station bookstalls are stacked with PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie and books about how to do best in business.
Trains at a Glance, published annually, is the Indian rail timetable. Its most intriguing feature is the “Rail Travel Concessions chart” towards the back. Concessions, it reveals, can be claimed by “students and non-students” travelling “to render voluntary service during national calamities”, “recipients of Indian Police Medal for meritorious service”, and “artists — theatrical, musical concert, dancing, magician troupes”.
I love all this. Clare is more guarded, particularly about train toilets, which are not always for the faint-hearted.
There are no such problems, of course, on luxury trains. We’ve done a few, most memorably a preview run of the Deccan Odyssey around the state of Maharashtra. At remote stations, crowds of villagers peered through the windows of this glamorous beast. The on-board chefs worked tirelessly preparing regional dishes and never blinked when passengers asked for thin-crust pizza or Caesar salad.
And at Aurangabad we discovered the Bibi Ka Maqbara, a dead ringer for the Taj Mahal (though quieter).
But I can’t recall train rides in India without hearing that phrase again: “Inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.”
It evokes a memorable night many years ago, when we turned up early for a midnight train. A train lumbered in at 11.30pm. “This is amazing,” I said to a fellow passenger. “Our train is half an hour early.” “No, no,” he replied. “This is yesterday’s train. It is 23-and-a-half hours late.”