Namaste All,
Like an infection, I seemed to pick up some bad karma in India. In Agra,
while walking around the Taj Mahal in the 43°C heat, I caught
bronchitis. The following morning I woke early and took a cycle rickshaw to the station in time to catch my 1st Class air-conditioned – with free breakfast included – train to Jhansi. When I got to the station it was in chaos, more so than usual.
In India, train stations tend to resemble battle fields; with sleeping bodies strewn everywhere and the odd cow or dog scavenging for food. There weren’t any bodies today. I met a Swedish couple, also en route
to Jhansi and Khajuraho, and we went to the information counter to try and find out what was happening.
The guy at the information counter couldn’t speak English. He told us to see the Ticket Collector. The Ticket Collector told us to see the Deputy Station Manager. The Deputy Station Manager told us that there had been a head-on collision between two trains on the line to Delhi, that up to 200 people were believed dead, and that there would not be any trains to Jhansi until the following day, maybe.
We asked him if we could get refunds on our tickets and he said that we could, but that we would first have to see the Station Manager. The Station Manager endorsed our tickets for a full refund and told us to go to the Booking Office. The booking office sent us to the Reservations Counter. The man at the Reservations Counter told us to fill out a Request for a Refund Form. We filled out the forms and he cancelled our tickets and gave us a refund.
Two hours later we left the station, went to the local bus station and caught a government bus bound for Gwalior, halfway between Agra and Jhansi. Twelve hours, two hot, dusty, over-crowded, painful bus journeys, and one outrageously expensive taxi ride later we arrived in a virtually deserted Khajuraho.
The hotel owners in Khajuraho blame the lack of tourists on the war. Say
they have had numerous cancellations. I tend to think that the lack of
tourists has a little bit more to do with the season; For two weeks the
temperature had rarely dropped below 30 degrees, even at night. The
humidity left you sweating 24 hours a day and dark; pregnant looking
clouds hung permanently overhead.
The Hindu temples in Khajuraho, built over a period of a hundred years
around 1000 BC are famous mostly for their erotic friezes depicting the
numerous positions of the Kama Sutra. The temples themselves are
remarkably well preserved despite some criminal attempts at restoration.
Even while we were walking around the temples we saw a cleaner “dusting”
one of the temples. He was scrubbing these priceless treasures with a straw brush. Nothing is ever properly cleaned in India. Even the rubbish – thrown on the floor because there are no bins – is never picked up.
V.S Naipaul, in “An Area of Darkness”, suggests that in India it is not so important how the sweeper sweeps, only that he demonstrates his lowliness sufficiently by performing the act.
Two days later we left Khajuraho. We had planned to catch the 14:00 bus to Satna to meet our 19:55 sleeper train to Varanassi, but the bus did not arrive. Nor did the 15:00 bus. By the time we got on the 16:00 bus everyone was trying to calm us down, as if we were errant children, prone to violence;
“No problem, sir. This bus express bus. Three hours fifteen minutes to Satna. No problem.”
The day before we had been told the bus would take four hours. The bus did take four hours to get to Satna. There was a brief moment though, on the outskirts of Satna, with fifteen minutes to go, when we almost
believed we would make the train. Then the long, long anticipated
monsoons finally hit. In an instant the road became a flood zone; visibility was reduced to inches and you had to shout at the person next to you to make yourself heard.
In a country where the only rule of the road is: Might is Right, and where the bus rules over all save petrol tankers and cows, it was only the fear of hitting the latter which slowed our bus driver to walking pace. We got to the station, soaked to the bone, having missed our
train by four minutes. We cancelled our tickets, got fifty percent refunds and booked General 2nd, or cattle class tickets on the 01:35am train.
With nothing to do but wait we picked up our dripping backpacks, walked down the platform to the empty Railway canteen, piled our bags in a corner and sat down at the nearest table.
“May we see a menu please?” I asked the waiter.
“I’m very sorry, sir, but we cannot give you dinner.”
“I’m sorry, are you open?”
“Yes, sir. Of course we are open, but it is past dinner time.” It was five past eight.
“What can you serve us?”
“Bread, butter or omelet.”
“Tea?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Indian bureaucracy truly is a thing to behold.
I returned to the station an hour later with plastic shopping bag of Biriyani to find the others sprawled out on the platform outside the now closed restaurant; equally oblivious to the swarms of mosquitoes, the blaring microphones chanting unintelligible English apologies to mostly illiterate Hindu speakers, and to the crowd of onlookers gathered around them.
Without sleeper reservations on the train we were forced to sit on our bags in the isle for three hours being trodden on by every passerby. At about 04:30 we grabbed the places of a family getting off the train. We chained all our backpacks to a spare bunk – a necessary precaution, since stories of backpackers being robbed on Indian trains are legendary – and went to sleep.
At eight o’clock I woke up, glanced at the bags and felt my universe
slip. My day pack, containing my cash, my camera and my passport – with
the Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese visas – was missing. By the time we
arrived in Varanassi, I had recovered to some extent from the utter
devastation of a few hours earlier. I had a plan; I was going to have to report the crime, change some travelers cheques – thankfully left in my main pack – and then backtrack to Delhi to sort the mess out. Weeks of embassy queues and bureaucracy stretched before me.
At the station I said goodbye to the Swedes and went in search of the Police Station. Using pigeon English I tried to explain what had happened to me. They seemed to understand and to sympathize. They asked me what the number of my train was, but I had no idea, only that it had come from Madras.
Then they gave me a cup of tea and a blank piece of paper and I began to write a crime report. A hour later I had finished the report. It was two pages long and meticulous. It had details of times, places, faces and missing items. In a strange way I was quite proud of it. As I was signing the report, more than an hour after I had arrived in
Varanassi, a small boy of about six years old walked into the Police Station holding my day pack. He was closely followed by an authoritative looking Police Lieutenant with a graying mustache who spoke good English.
While he read my report I inspected the bag they had found dumped in one of the First Class toilets. The thieves had slashed the loop holding the back to the bunk but had managed to break the zip lock without even damaging the zip. Relief flooded through me as I discovered first my passport and then the rest of my documents. They had kept my cash, camera, pen-knife, calculator and thermos flask. The police Lieutenant finished reading my report, crumpled it up and threw it on the floor. He then asked me a few relevant questions and pushed another blank piece of paper in front of me.
“Your report too long. Here, you write I dictate …” I picked up the pen and waited for him to begin.
“… Dear Sir, My blue bag was stolen at 01:35 in Satna Station by any persons unknown …”
“But,” I spluttered ineffectually, “but that’s not true!” I began to protest a number of things, not least the grammar I was going to have to sign my name to.
“.. Dear Sir,” He said tapping the paper with his finger, not bothering to answer, “D – E – A – R …” I understood. This was politics. Writing Satna on the report wasn’t going to stop him investigating the crime properly, but it would reduce the crime figures in his area.
Varanassi, beside the River Ganges, is the holiest of all Hindu Cities and, rumor has it, current residence of Lord Siva, provider of all life. It is this belief that draws the pilgrims to Varanassi. Many devout Hindus come here to die as they believe their path to heaven will be shorter. This is a philosophy which is neatly echoed in the Indian queuing system; Why queue in a straight line when you can get closer to the front in a scrum. And there, in a restaurant overlooking the sacred Ganga, I found my Swedish friends with American accents, and we have been together since.
Like an infection I picked up some bad karma in India. Like an infection I took the prescribed treatment. Against my better judgment I gave money to Sadhus and fed holy cows when they asked me. And lo, here I am in
Kathmandu. The weather is moderate, the people are friendly. No-one
hassles you, apart from the dealers who sidle out of the shadows and
whisper “Hashish?” in your ear. They show English movies in the Italian
restaurants, and the bakeries have to be seen to be believed.
My trip into Tibet is organized for the 7th August and I have already
stocked up on all the stolen items in the tax-free shops. On Thursday I leave for Pokhara and will then be hiking in the Himalayas for two weeks.
