This is a continuation of my diary from my RTW trip from October 2003.After a few days in Delhi and I was ready to leave the capital once and for all to head into Rajasthan.
I left the hotel with plenty of time to spare to get the train to Jaipur, but nothing in India is simple, and although it wasn’t as hair-raising as the Zambezi, my trip to the station was still quite an adventure.
New Delhi is a well planned, broad boulevard-ed development and the traffic flows easily. Old Delhi is largely built along Medieval lines and the traffic was at a complete standstill. The train was leaving from Old Delhi station at 3:05pm, and we became stationary in traffic, 1km from Old Delhi station at 2pm.
The longer we were sat in traffic the more nervous I was getting. It didn’t help that the driver kept saying that the station was 5 minutes away and five minutes later we still weren’t there.
The most unhelpful thing though was at half past two, he pulls the car over and tries to usher us out of the car and into a restaurant for lunch! At the seventh time of asking he finally got the message that we had a train to catch and didn’t have time for a Chicken Rogan Josh. It was now that I realised that the driver had detoured on purpose to take us to the restaurant and although we were en route to the railway station, we hadn’t taken the most direct route.
So with 35 minutes to go until the train departed we edge out into the stationary traffic again. Eventually at 14:50 we were within sight of the station, but the traffic was still only inching forward. On different journeys around Delhi, I had come across some pretty assertive drivers. Now, when we really needed one, we seemed to have the least aggressive driver in Delhi. He was being overtaken by hand pulled carts and still the time was edging ever nearer to the train departure.
At this point I lost faith in the driver and abandoned the car. The drivers parting instruction was to walk over the pedestrian bridge in front of us which spanned the road. So now I'm out of the car and walking down a traffic jammed dual-carriageway in Delhi with my rucksack. Getting from the car to the station involved marching diagonally across a crossroads intersection… there was obviously something in my face that said “don’t fuck with me right now” because even the three wheeler tuk tuks stopped to let me march across.
14:58. Train leaves in 7 minutes and I'm still not inside the station. Best or rather worst of all is that I can’t see a way into the station either. I can hear trains whistling and can see loads of stalls backed up against the outside wall of the station, but there seems to be no entrance!
To try and give you a better idea too of the scene, imagine walls that are maybe 20ft high and reddish pink in hue. Straight over my head is the pedestrian bridge the driver mentioned casting down its shadow. Behind me is a dual carriageway of largely stationary traffic, waiting for the lights to go green at the crossroads to move, and they’re all belching out malodorous fumes.
Talking of malodour, when I say the walls of the station are lined with stalls, I mean that between the gutter, which has raw sewage running through it; beyond the mangy dogs and the skeletal cow that’s chewing a crisp packet (what nutritious milk that must produce); just beyond the group of under 7 year old kids begging for cash and fighting and stealing from each other; beyond the parked tuk tuks and the hand cart, stacked 10 feet high with sacks of vegetables that has been pulled onto the path because the traffic isn’t moving; were a number of lean-to, ramshackle, makeshift stalls of plywood and corrugated iron, from which were being sold food, water bottles, bangles (like I need a bangle right at that moment!) and handkerchiefs, all covered in the signature Delhi layer of black, greasy pollutants.
14:59 Train leaves in 6 minutes. I see the pedestrian bridge doesn’t just cross the road, it continues over the rail tracks. The entrance must be on the other side of the bridge, so I set off – up the stairs and dodging all the guys squatting along the side of the bridge. Some of them selling all the stuff from the stalls. Some of them chatting and some of them just pissing against the walls.
One of the great clichés of travel writing about India is that someone is so evocative that through their words you ‘can even smell India’. Well let me have a go at rendering for you the smell of Delhi... just don’t expect any ground capsicum, crushed coriander or grated cinnamon to be lingering too long in the air!, because the overriding smell of Delhi is that of human urine.
Everywhere you go during the day, you see men relieving themselves just wherever they please. They do at least have the decency to turn their back to you. You don’t notice the smell too much during the day because of the pollution from the traffic, but at night it is overwhelmingly ever-present.
All this of course passes by in a blur as I'm legging it across the bridge and wondering which of the 15 platforms we’re crossing has my train on it. I'm also wondering why the bridge doesn’t have any steps onto the platforms, but remember we still aren’t in the station yet!
15:00 Train leaves in 5 minutes and I'm down the steps. The traffic on this side of the station is also blocked. Parked tuk tuks to the left, hand carts, cycle rickshaws, a couple of Toyota Landcruisers. There is no way through the traffic as there is of course no pavement unless… so I walk into the oncoming traffic and behave like a vehicle overtaking everything on the inside. This is clearly a strategy I should have employed crossing the roads in Delhi before because guess what? The oncoming traffic pulls enough to the left to give me space with my suitcase to get through. Thank god for the Hindu and Buddhist fixation with the sanctity of all life. (Maybe that should be thank Buddha and Shiva thinking about it!) If I’d tried it in Manchester I’d have been run over and the driver would have self-satisfyingly blamed the dam fool that was wandering into oncoming traffic. At the very least I’d have got a mouthful of abuse. As it was I didn’t even get honked at. Finally I see the entrance to the station and dive in.
15:01 Train leaves in 4 minutes and I'm on a platform in the station, but there is no information about where our train goes from at all. Then I hear a voice behind me shouting “Ashram Express?” “Ashram Express?” That was the name of my train, so throwing aside all previous caution about porters I shout back “Yes, Ashram Express”. I didn’t have time to ask which platform our train was leaving from before the guy grabbed the suitcase from my hand, plonked it on top of his head and has started running down the platform towards the railway stations’ own bridge.
15:02 I'm running down the platform following the porter. I’ve got my little rucksack. We’ve made the steps to the bridge. Please let our train be on the next platform over!!
15:03 Running across the station bridge, heading back in the direction we just came from. The porter is fast and through the crowds I’m having trouble keeping up with him. The train is of course not on the next platform across from us. It is on the platform furthest from where we came in the station. Jostling through the crowds. The porter is still rushing on ahead. Are we going to make it? Is the porter going to throw my bag on the train without me?
15:04 Running down the stairs. The porter is at the bottom and is haring down the platform now, trying to get me to my seat. I'm booked into the air conditioned carriage (5 hour journey = £17). I’ve landed on the platform at the back of the train by the third class carriages. The porter is determined to get me to my seat and keeps running.
15:05 The train is due to go. The platform we’re running down resembles the street outside and the bridge outside in all its heaving noisy, smelly, crowded tumult. One vendor did well that day as I grabbed a bottle of water from a vendor stand and lobbed a 100 rupee note at the guy in exchange, not even breaking stride as I did so. (water is normally 10r per bottle!)
The porter with my suitcase is now half a carriage ahead of me. I’m praying the train will be late!
15:06 The train starts to move off and I'm still on the platform! The doors on Indian trains are manual and are left open in 3rd class carriages anyway for air movement. I see the porter with my bag stop running and he throws my suitcase onto the train!! I use what little breath I have left for an all out sprint to the door where my bag has been thrown, fumble for a payment in my wallet as I’m running and realise I only have a 500 rupee note - £7. I thrust it into the hand of the porter as I jump for the train door and have no idea what he made of the over-sized tip as the train gathers speed and pulls out of the station.
So now I’m standing on the train. My suitcase on the floor next to me. It’s 34 degrees in Delhi and I am sweating like the proverbial. Astonished Indian passengers are staring at me and giggling about the state I’m in. I'm still not in the right carriage however and need to walk through the train. I pick up my suitcase, which as well as having wheels and a handle also has backpack straps and start going through the train.
Indian trains are long! UK trains usually have about 12 carriages. I’d already run past that many on the platform, and I walked through another five before I came to the door to the air conditioned carriages and the seat I’d paid for. It was locked.
As part of the 1st class ticket you get food included. This isn’t the case in 3rd class, where people sell you food and drink. While the free stuff is given out, the door between the classes is locked. I found a seat and contemplated 5 hours on a train with no food. Apart from the food, what else makes 3rd class 3rd class?
Firstly there are 5 seats across the carriage instead of 4 in 2nd class and 3 in 1st class. The carriage I was in was fairly empty though so I wasn't as squashed as we might have been. Most carriages are sleeper carriages because the trains can travel for up to 36 hours from the North to the South of the country. So if you can imagine it, you sit on the bottom bunk bed and have two others above you. In the 2nd and 1st classes there are pillows and blankets provided, but not in 3rd class.
The other difference is that the windows in 3rd class have thick metal bars going horizontally across the windows. Why? Because the windows have no glass in them! 3rd class is open to the elements and it was quite nice to have the breeze to help me cool down... until the train left central Delhi and made its way out through the slums of the city. Looking at the slums you realise that what you are looking at is a rubbish tip, compacted through building and human traffic. By the railway edge, you could see layer upon layer of refuse, held together with dust. Dwellings cobbled together from bricks, corrugated metal with makeshift doors. Kids, men and women, goats, cows, pigs all mixed together, getting by as best as they can. Through the unglazed window, I’m sure you can imagine the smells of slum India.
After 45 minutes, the door was unlocked to the a/c compartments and I was able to take my seat. Except I didn't have a seat. Because it was a sleeper train, I had the top bunk in a cabin. I went back to 2nd class and found a seat for the rest of the four hours to Jaipur.
Comments
Post a Comment