Sample chapter: “Knickerless on the Night Train to Madras”
This story is extracted from my forthcoming book “Some Items May Have Shifted In Flight”, and recently won a Travellers Tales Solas Award in the category of “travel writing/humour”.
A milling mass of humanity waited not so patiently in the ticket hall of Trivandrum Station for the one daily train to Madras. It was a complete fluster-cluck, to put it mildly. The line for the ticket window was not so much a line as a mob, with people waiting, gesticulating, shouting, sitting, standing on one leg, cooking, praying, breast-feeding, meditating, eating, arguing, spitting, sleeping, stealing, hawking and smoking, to mention a few. The cacophony was punctuated by announcements over an ancient PA system that were entirely unintelligible. An elegant, sari-ed lady nearby repeatedly asked her husband
“What are they saying?”.
“I am not knowing!” he replied each time, his head wobbling from side to side with exasperation.
It became increasingly clear we would probably die of old age before we got to the ticket window, and I could see The Management was becoming agitated. Seeing our confusion and concern, a kindly gentleman tapped me on the shoulder, saying:
“Please be excusing me sir, but you can be going to the window for tourist. See, over there?”
“A window for tourists?” I said.
“Yes please” he responded, his head nodding from side to side, “you are not needing to be waiting in this unruly crowd. Please be going there and they will be seeing to your ticketing most promptly.” Indians can be so incredibly kind and thoughtful.
He turned to our porter and scolded him thoroughly for being a complete idiot.
With nothing to lose, we slowly elbowed our way through the crowd to a small ticket window at the end of the row. It was closed. There was no one standing in line, or behind it, nor did it look as if anyone had done so since the Partition of India. It did indeed have a small sign, in several languages, that said “Tourist Servicings” in English. The Management cast me a quizzical look, when a voice suddenly said
“Greetings! Please be telling me how I may be helping you Sir?”
A tall, be-turbaned and unnervingly thin man with a huge smile had magically materialised behind the window. His beard must have been getting somewhat out of control, as it was clearly trying to escape from the upside down hairnet in which he had attempted to contain it. He looked absolutely thrilled to see us and, Trivandrum not being a popular tourist destination at that time, had quite possibly been waiting for most of his career for this opportunity to serve a living, breathing tourist.
“We would like to buy two first class tickets for the Madras train please” I said, as he brushed some dust away and rearranged several official looking rubber stamps.
“Aha! Yes, that is very good indeed but she is ticketing to be at most maximum capacity”. His face dropped and a look of deep gloom momentarily swept his face. “But please not to be concerning yourself” he said, a beaming smile returning, “you must be seeing Station Master sahib. He will be servicing you personally. Please be coming with me!”
“I am just trying to digest the possible implications of being serviced by the Station Master”, said the Management, wide eyed. Seconds later, the man popped out of a side door, gesticulating wildly.
“Please be following me Sahib!”
So we fell in behind him, his arms windmilling like a rogue minesweeper as he charged through the mob, shouting at people to get out of his way. The crowds, faced with imminent assault, parted obligingly and we made rapid progress across the ticket hall. Ushering us through quite a grand doorway on the other side, a torrent of Tamil was directed at a secretary, who activated a switch on an antiquated intercom system to announce our arrival. The answer was incoherent to us, but apparently affirmative, as Sikh Fawlty ushered us through an ornate teak door, adorned with a sign saying Station Master in an unnecessarily elaborate font.
The Station Master was a small, rather portly man in a very smart uniform, who obviously took his job seriously. He sprang to his feet and held out his hand to greet us as if we were visiting Royalty. Felicitations were exchanged and introductions made. “Please be seated, I am most honored to be welcoming you at my station. Would you be enjoying me with a cup of tea?” We agreed; the secretary was called for and tea was ordered.
Getting down to business, he established where we wanted to travel, explaining that on every train a few first-class seats were reserved until the last minute for tourists or dignitaries. Most people made train reservations months in advance in India, so all trains were usually fully booked.
“Next time, please be going straight away to the Station Master and he will be accommodating you.”
This was all suddenly extremely civilized and I could hardly believe that minutes before we had been in the middle of a crowd that looked as if a jolly good tear-gassing was imminent. Here we now were, having risen to the lofty status of dignitary, sipping tea as guests of the Station Master. India is full of surprises like this. He continued chatting away as he filled out forms, juggled carbon paper, and stamped things aggressively, as if exterminating a dangerous spider.
After some more small talk about where we had been and where we were headed over the next few weeks, he finally handed us triplicate tickets.
“Please be coming with me, so I can be escorting you to the First Class seatings”. We followed him through a side door, directly on to the platform, where the long train stood, a grand old steam engine gently hissing at it’s front. A milling mass of humanity was busy trying to get everything and the kitchen sink on board for the twenty-something hour journey to Madras. He took us to the first class carriages, of which there were two, and right to our compartment, which he presented with a flourish.
“Here are your seatings! Please be having a most comfortable and enjoyable journey!”
We thanked him profusely and bade him goodbye, leaving him to issue instructions to the conductor as to our proper treatment. The Management stood and surveyed the first class compartment. Whatever proper treatment the Station Master had in mind, there were some immediate clues that the conductor and his imaginary staff were going to have some considerable difficulty delivering. We had wistfully imagined a colonial era level of comfort, tastefully decorated with dhurries and elegant throw-cushions. But what lay before us was disappointing in the extreme. There were two long benches, covered in dark green vinyl. Above them were two more, secured flat against the wall, which would presumably drop down to form two upper bunk beds. On the ceiling were four ancient and crud-encrusted black desk fans, arranged upside down. This constituted the air conditioning. Protruding from the wall under the window, there was a small surface that valiantly attempted to be a table, but failed dismally. If this was First class, I shuddered to imagine Third. The Steward explained, in a way that was designed to make you think for a moment that it was entirely satisfactory, that there was no dining car, but that food was available in the form of a Thali that could be pre-ordered from him before departure and would be picked up en-route and delivered to us. We ordered one each and returned to our seats, wishing we had prepared ourselves better for this insanely long train journey.
On the platform, the presence of a couple of Westerners on the train had been noted and a dozen excitable people ranging from age 6 to 108, noisily attempted to sell us a wide range of highly questionable food and unidentifiable liquids at vastly inflated prices. Some time after our scheduled departure, the engine driver hung heavily on the whistle and, with a lot of mournful hooting, we slowly began to move. Our mobile grocery emporium frantically tried to keep pace along the platform, ever optimistic we would have a last minute change of heart and buy a Jackfruit. Eventually, the last determined contender teetered at the end of the platform and we chuffed, rocked and hooted away from the station.
The reason we had chosen to travel by train was because it afforded a spectacular look at this extraordinary country and sure enough, outside the window, India began to unveil itself in all its gritty, dirty, gorgeous, colourful magnificence. One minute we were seeing the roads, traffic and facades of buildings old and new, the next we were “behind the scenes”, passing slums, river banks and belching factories. Men and women squatted to heed nature’s call wherever they happened to be, even on busy streets. Sacred cows wandered where they pleased. Rubbish and fetid piles of stinking garbage were everywhere, jostling for space with industrial detritus and construction debris. The rambling suburbs gave way to countryside and workers toiling in the fields with hardly a tractor in sight. Buffalos harnessed to ploughs were the machinery of choice. I opened the window and soot-laden smoke blasted into in my face.
It was dusk as we pulled into the station at Tenkasi, our first stop, the night just beginning to throw its cloak over the city. The arrival of any train in any station signaled the start of a frenzy of activity. In addition to the station staff and railway employees, an entire ecosystem of several hundred people - more in the larger stations - depended on the arrival of a train to eke out a meagre living. The wheels had barely stopped turning before a small crowd of vendors attached themselves to every window, offering fruits, drinks, Paranthas, Uttapam, Poori and the ever popular and highly portable samosa. Smartly turbaned Sikh porters waited keenly for the First Class carriages to come to a halt, so they could offer their services to the better heeled travelers. Several leprotic beggars made their way down beside the train, tapping on the window and pointing out their particular combo of missing limbs, as if presenting their credentials. Embarking and disembarking passengers jostled their way around each other, the guard shouting instructions and ineffectively shoo-ing away the beggars. We wondered if we would acquire some traveling companions in our compartment, but the only thing that materialized was our thali. The Management regarded it with deep suspicion, prodding a fork into this and that, as if expecting to uncover something unpleasant. I was hungry enough to eat a badger, and tucked into mine with gusto, finding it perfectly palatable. There was some sort of meat curry (probably goat), rice, bengan-bharta and okra, along with naan bread and raita. I wolfed mine down. The Management pushed hers over to me, making a face to indicate her dislike.
After dinner we attempted to read our books, but it had been a long day and we quickly became sleepy. There followed a succession of stations through the night, every two hours or so. The activity was the same at each, so they blended into a routine that punctuated our fractured sleep like the clickety-clack of the wheels. In between, each overhead fan made a different dysfunctional noise to help ensure our sleep was further disrupted. One emitted a rhythmic grrt-grrt-grrt-grrt on each rotation of its blades. Another, once it had achieved a certain climactic velocity and frequency, shook violently every couple of minutes. The motor of the third buzzed angrily, as if it were about to explode and the last one did not work at all. Several times I got up and attempted to pry, twist, bend, smack and verbally abuse them into proper working order, all to no avail. Without them the air became so stiflingly hot that to have them on was marginally the lesser of two evils. What air they did move around was sooty and hot, with notes of burnt carbon-brush, so they afforded minimum comfort at maximum decibels.
The sprawling, rusty, dusty Indian Rail network, one of the largest employers on the planet, is a defining legacy of British rule in India. The country's first passenger train ran between Bombay's Bori Bunder station and Thane on 16 April 1853, was dedicated by Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General. Proving to be the perfect mass-transit system for the Indian sub-continent, the expansion of the railway network continued, unabated, for decades.
On the 23rd February 1982, the year in which we had travelled, Shri P. C. Sethi, Minister for Railways, had given a speech in the Indian Parliament introducing the budget for 1982-83. Among the key points he made was that during the year “600 coaches, 18,250 wagons and 550 locomotives are likely to be condemned”. Interesting choice of words. Then, in a staggering contradiction of strategy, he stated:
“It cannot be denied that increase in the number of passenger trains has not kept pace with the growth of passenger traffic.”
Given the aforementioned condemnation of rolling stock, this came as no surprise to many in the audience. On the subject of punctuality, or lack thereof, he went on to say
“Unauthorised stoppage of trains by alarm-chain pulling, failure of rolling stock and other equipment, either because of their being in poor fettle or on account of poor maintenance and accidents are some of the major factors affecting punctuality of passenger trains.”
Yes, well those would definitely be major factors. To emphasize quite how upset he was about the astonishing mess over which he was presiding, he finished by declaring “I am quite exercised about it.”
The next twelve hours were spent trying to pass the time as best we could. There was, at least, an ever changing panorama of Indian life outside the window. Sometimes it was interesting, sometimes spectacular, occasionally sad, but never dull. Another Thali came and went. The Management again refused it, opting instead for a packet of biscuits purchased through the window of the train at one of the stations. The loo was avoided unless absolutely necessary, for it was simply a hole in the floor, through which one could see the railway sleepers passing in a blur below. The amount of bodily fluids and excrement that had not found its way through the sizable hole - either by design, sudden movement of the train or incompetence - was quite extraordinary. In fact, there were deposits in places that caused me to wonder how on earth they could possibly have been placed, catapulted, sprayed or ejected there. Needless to say, The Management was even more appalled than I, and we discussed measures we might take on our next train journey to lessen our exposure to bubonic plague and dysentry.
The Management was in the midst of a knicker crisis, having mislaid several pairs in the Maldives. She suspected the laundry ladies might have taken a fancy to them, as every time she sent them to be washed, fewer reappeared. She was down to two pairs, and now found herself to be knickerless on the night train to Madras. She had, out of desperation, taken to sharing my abundant supply of boxer shorts. However, due to their design, she would emit a distressed squeak several times a day, when they got into places she would rather they not. She was looking forward to getting to a proper department store in Madras to restock with something more feminine and anatomically appropriate.
By the time we finally pulled in to Madras station, some eighteen hours after we set off from Trivandrum, we were tired, dirty and rather cross. Built in 1873, it is the busiest railway station in South India. But we hardly took a moment to marvel at the intricate cast-iron work with which the magnificent red and white station was constructed. For the first time in our lives, we were experiencing culture shock. The realisation that 729 million people lived mostly in a way that we found quite shockingly basic, was proving surprisingly hard become accustomed to. That most of them seemed to think this was perfectly fine, was more astonishing still. Dazed, we selected a porter and elbowed our way through the crowds, taking precautions to watch our pockets. In the milling throng outside, we somehow managed to locate a taxi and set off to our hotel. On the way, we stopped at a traffic light and a beggar with no legs scooted up beside us and tapped eagerly on the window. He had bravely built himself a rudimentary skateboard and, positioned atop it, deftly carved his way in-between the cars, tuk-tuks, sacred cows and other traffic, at constant risk to life and remaining limb.
There are theories that beggars are maimed at birth by their parents, to ensure them an income for life, or that children are deliberately maimed by criminal gangs, who will then exploit the beggar for their income. Whilst there is a likely a grain of truth in this belief, the vast majority of beggars are there because they have genuinely had the misfortune to lose limbs through accidents or disease. There are simply so many millions of people in India who find themselves hideously disadvantaged by caste, lack of education, industrial accident, family, home, shelter or job, that begging is simply the only option for them. Thousands arrive in cities like Bombay and Madras every day, and any lucrative begging location is beset by dozens of them. There is even a village called Kapadia Basti in Kanpur, where the entire population of 4,000 have been surviving on alms for centuries, and are unwilling to switch occupations. They pose as holy men in saffron robes and travel far and wide to lurk outside temples, earning enough, rupee by rupee, to have a comfortable life - by poor rural village standards.
Our plan was to travel by train, but stay in a comfortable hotel at each destination. At that time in India, there were five-star hotels and then there were the rest, which mostly had no idea there was a connection between hotels and stars at all. There was pretty much nothing in between, and if there was, they were impossible to find in the absence of the internet. The five-star hotels were inexpensive by western standards, and we felt the need for good clean conditions, laundry and decent food in between the long, dirty, tiring train journeys. And so we arrived at the Taj Coromandel. The glass doors slid open and we stepped from stifling humidity into the delicious frisson of air conditioning for the first time in two weeks. We spent the remains of the day soaking away the soot and sweat in a bubble-bath and luxuriating in the coolness of our room.
The hotel concierge, always our go-to problem-solver in any situation far from home, shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. Being male and Indian in 1982, he was ill prepared for questions related to ladies undergarments, but the gist of his reply was
A) That there was no "department store” in Madras
B) No he could not readily suggest a suitable place to buy ladies underwear
C) Could we please, please, oh please, keep our voices down?
Every time the word knickers was mentioned he convulsed as if he had been lightly electrocuted. After some sweat-inducing interrogation by The Management, it was obvious he would rather climb onto a funeral pyre and set alight to it himself, than ask such an intimate question of his female colleagues. His body language suggested that his day would be enormously improved if we were both instantaneously and permanently abducted by aliens. Seeing we were getting nowhere, The Management took matters into her own hands.
“We must go to the Embassy immediately” she announced.
“Why on earth would we do that?” I asked, somewhat taken aback by the sudden change of subject.
“Well,” she explained “they will know where I can buy knickers.”
“They will?” I asked, incredulously.
“And anyway”, she continued, “we should drop in, introduce ourselves to the Ambassador, have a cup of tea and let them know we are here, in India”.
“Why?” I asked.
“In case we die.”
At a loss for words, and sceptical we would be offered anything more than a handshake by a junior clerk, I hailed a tuk-tuk and we set off for the British High Commission, with the hope of a quick resolution to the knicker crisis.
In case you do not know, as I did not, Embassies are diplomatic missions in non-Commonwealth countries. The head of the mission at an Embassy is an Ambassador, but in major cities other than the capital there may be a Consulate, headed by a Consul-General, Consul, Vice-Consul, or Consular Agent. High Commissions are diplomatic missions in Commonwealth countries. The head of the mission at a High Commission, is a High Commissioner, and in major cities other than the capital there would be a Deputy High Commissioner. As well as referring to diplomatic missions, the terms "Embassy" and "High Commission" refer to the actual buildings themselves. So in Madras, it turned out we would actually need to go to the Deputy High Commission (building) to see the Deputy High Commissioner (person). So now you know.
Forty-five minutes later, much to my complete amazement, we were sitting on the veranda of the Deputy High Commission, having tea with the Deputy High Commissioner and his wife. It turned out that British citizens traveling to or through Madras rarely bothered to stop by the Deputy High Commission and introduce themselves. The fact that we had made the effort, and there were no major diplomatic incidents in progress at the time, earned us a warm welcome, a nice cup of tea and a ginger biscuit. The gardens were lush, tropical and immaculately tended, and it was hard to imagine there was an insanely busy metropolis outside. The DHC and I discussed the Falklands conflict, my Grandfather’s diplomatic career and our travel plans. The Management was intent on grilling his wife the local availability of ladies underwear. She explained that in India, ladies underwear was known as “unmentionables”, so the purchase of them was not as straight forward as we had come to expect in the west. The local selection, she warned, would be extremely limited, and she brought all hers from home. She suggested a couple of possible places and we left, hopeful the knicker shortage would soon be resolved.
Never one to put off until tomorrow what can be done today - especially when it comes to underwear - The Management flagged down a tuk-tuk and we quickly found ourselves at the foremost purveyor of ladies undergarments in Madras. In a large room, there were several rows of tables, upon which were dozens of large, shallow boxes, each containing different types and sizes of undergarment. Numerous Indian ladies scuffled hopefully in the boxes looking for what pleased and fitted them, casting me ferocious glances that made it clear I was not even slightly welcome. The Management joined in with gusto, busying herself optimistically. Every time I tried to leave and wait outside, there was a flurry of gesticulation, indicating I should stay right there. So I stood by the door, the only man in the room, as she occasionally held something up for me to see. The expression on her face became increasingly desperate, and the other shoppers looked increasingly apoplectic at my presence. It appeared that Indian ladies were more used to granny pants than the trendy knickers of the West. They were large, drab in color, unflattering and Victorian, designed to cover, conceal and render the lady-parts as inaccessible as Fort Knox to all except the wearer.
“I think these knickers are an abomination. I could never possibly wear them.”
“No, they really aren’t your style at all.”
“They are unsuitable, unattractive and, frankly, bloody unhealthy in all this heat and humidity.”
“Maybe you should go commando”, I said, hopefully.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I will just have to wear your boxers until I can have some made.”
“Made?”
“Well of course; if you can have shirts or a jacket made in 24 hours, there must be some lovely ladies somewhere who can knock-off a dozen pairs of Marks & Sparks knickers.” I had to agree that made perfect sense, resigned to the fact that I would soon know everything there was to know about the design, materials and optional features of bespoke ladies lingerie in India. For the management, getting knickers made in Madras would likely be a breeze. She would almost certainly start by asking the concierge.