Back of Beyond Page 28

  The taxi driver turned and shrugged his shoulders.

  “It is better I think we go to the other office.”

  “There are two telephone offices!?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  The driver smiled and shrugged his shoulders again. Time was definitely running out.

  “Okay. Let’s go. Fast. I’ve got to make that call.”

  We clambered back into the taxi, a faithful reproduction of a 1950s British Morris Oxford, made in India and renamed “The Ambassador.” He switched on the ignition. The engine gave two ghastly howls and died. Silence. Utter silence. He tried again. Nothing.

  “This is ridiculous,” I groaned.

  The driver turned and predictably shrugged his shoulders.

  We sat for what seemed forever. Then he opened his door and walked toward the guard to ask for assistance. The guard was deaf as a slab of granite. As far as he was concerned we had never existed.

  The driver returned, opened the door, sat down, and started thinking again.

  “I’ll push,” I said.

  He turned, smiled, and nodded.

  So I got out of the car, pushed it across the bridge, over the stinking moat, and into the street. Some passersby stood watching, amused by this rather overweight foreigner struggling with a bulbous, dilapidated taxi. Finally two men on a moped stopped and came to help push-start the car.

  We all had the impression the taxi driver was not familiar with this method of starting a car (or the car had no workable clutch as he seemed to drive in one gear all the time). After thirty yards of sweaty pushing, he still hadn’t let in the clutch. We stopped and the moped driver explained what he should do. On the fourth go the car burst into something approaching life, with two cylinders banging and clanking.

  It was now 6:30, an hour before my train was to leave.

  “We have no time,” I said. “Forget the telephone. We must pick up my bags from the local station—then drive to the main station for my train.”

  Again the driver looked perplexed. Fortunately the moped driver was able to clarify my instructions.

  We set off, the car lurching and jerking like some kind of apopletic bull, down the dark streets.

  Ten minutes later he was well and truly lost. I felt he’d taken a wrong turn way back, but as I’d only been in the town for one day I wasn’t at all sure of my way around.

  The driver stopped to ask directions to the station (in his own town!). We set off, only to become completely lost again, in a narrow alley blocked at the far end by half a dozen white cows, wallowing in pools of muddy rainwater.

  More enquiries, too exasperating to recount.

  In another ten minutes we finally found the station, and I hurried off to collect my bags from the left luggage office.

  The clerk was a delightfully impish elderly man with a betel-stained toothy smile and eyes sparkling behind the thickest spectacle lenses I’d ever seen.

  “There’s no key, sir. So sorry.”

  “You have lost it?” I asked.

  “It has been taken,” he said firmly.

  “Do you have another?”

  “Oh no, I do not, sir,” said the clerk, smiling. “But the stationmaster does.”

  “Can we get it?”

  “I cannot leave the office here.”

  “Can we telephone him?”

  “His telephone is not working.” He was still smiling brightly.

  “Can I go and fetch him? I’m in a great hurry. I need my bags.”

  “He may not be where he normally is, sir,” he said.

  “Well, can I try?”

  “By all means, sir, by all means.”

  “Where should he be?”

  He drew me a little map of the station on the back of an old luggage chit, and I went to find the stationmaster. He was not where the clerk thought he would be, but I eventually located him sitting with a group of turbaned porters in a room behind a room, behind another room, drinking tea.

  I explained the urgency of my predicament.

  “This will be settled,” he said smilingly, “in a moment.” He continued to sip his tea, finished a tale he was telling his friends, lifted his very substantial bulk off the tiny wicker chair, and accompanied me back to the left luggage office.

  When we arrived, he placed his hat officiously on his broad head and adopted a mantle of absolute authority.

  “Where is your chit?” he asked.

  I explained that I had already given it to his assistant, who was grinning and bowing and apologizing, all at the same time, for any inconvenience caused to the stationmaster.

  “Give him his chit,” the stationmaster said, ignoring all the obsequiousness.

  The old man handed it to me like a wafer at holy communion.

  “You must sign,” said the stationmaster.

  “It says here I should sign only after recipt of the luggage,” I said.

  The stationmaster’s authority was obviously not to be questioned.

  “You must sign now.”

  I signed.

  “And here.” He handed me the clerk’s copy of my chit.

  I signed.

  “And here.” He flung open an enormous ledger and pointed to where my name was entered in meticulous script.

  I signed.

  The stationmaster handed the ledger to his assistant imperiously and swept out of the left luggage office without another word.

  I looked at my watch. I’d never make the train.

  “Look, I’m running very late. Can I please have my bags—now!”

  I must have panicked the poor man. He moved too quickly and fell against a shoulder-high pile of ancient left luggage ledgers near the door to the baggage room. In a wonderful explosion of dusty and crumbling paper, they collapsed in total disarray, blocking the door.

  “I’ll help you move them. Let’s hurry!” I said and looked for a way to reach his side of the counter.

  “Please, sir.” He struggled to reach his full height. “Please, sir, no, I will call my assistant to move them.”

  “Look, I can help you. I don’t have time.”

  “Sir, I do not lift ledger books.” His manner suddenly became just as imperious as the stationmaster’s. To him my suggestion was outrageous, an affront to the meticulous system of behavior and protocol in India.

  “Where is your assistant, then?”

  “I will send for him, sir,” he told me. A young boy was passing with a tray of tiny tea cups. He ordered the boy to leave the tea on the counter and go to find his assistant.

  His dignity and authority restored, he turned smilingly to me and offered me a cup of tea. I declined. My patience was gone. I stood staring at the fallen ledgers, sweating and fuming. Within a couple of minutes his assistant arrived, and he began to sort out the ledgers in date-order.

  “Please,” I almost shouted, “just move them and let me have my bags!”

  My imperiousness appeared to work. They pushed the ledgers aside, opened the door, and dragged out my bags. I was amazed to find them intact. But there was yet one more hurdle.

  “Where is your chit, sir?” asked the old clerk.

  “I already gave it to the stationmaster.”

  The poor clerk must have lost it in all the confusion.

  I could see he was going to hold on to my bags. My tolerance was used up. I broke all the taboos, lifted the counter flap, pushed between the two men, picked up my bags before he could say a word, and stormed out of the office to my taxi.

  Fortunately, the next bit went smoothly. The driver actually remembered the way to the main railroad station. I was so amazed I tipped him far too much and left him smiling benignly like a minor Hindu deity.

  At last—the sound of trains, blowing steam, and people (lots of people!). Stepping over, between, and around the (now familiar) array of sprawling sari and dhoti-covered bodies in the main concourse of the railway station, I scampered to the ticket counter at the far end of the �
��safe drinking water” stand.

  “First class to Delhi, please. The train leaves very soon, I think.”

  The clerk was another elderly man, slightly deaf and obviously unimpressed by my disheveled, sweaty appearance.

  “It is too late.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got twenty minutes.”

  “You wish reservation?”

  “I’d like a sleeping berth, yes.”

  “In which case you need a reservation.”

  “Fine. May I have a reservation, please.”

  He pointed to what looked like a minor mob scene across the concourse.

  “Go there, please.”

  “But your sign says ‘First Class Tickets.’”

  “That is a different matter. You go over there, please.”

  More running of gauntlets between bodies, snagging people, clothes, and infants with my ridiculously overstuffed bags. The crowd is pure chaos. There are five windows but only one is open. Everyone is shouting, cursing, hacking, spitting.

  The clerk is oblivious of it all. I catch occasional glimpses of him smiling and chatting to his colleagues and then turning back to snarl at his customers. He writes very slowly in a huge ledger. It’s twenty degrees hotter over here, and I’m beginning to hallucinate about quiet hotels, soft easy chairs, air-conditioning, and ultra-dry martinis.

  Five minutes of sardine-can serendipity. Then suddenly I’m at the grille. Only the clerk is gone. I can hear him laughing somewhere behind the rickety tables piled high with browned ledgers. As soon as he returns the smile vanishes and a mask of utter disdain slides over his face like a gray film.

  “Please, I don’t have much time. Can I have a first class birth reservation for Delhi?”

  “It is too late.”

  “I can just make it, I think.”

  The clerk sneers.

  “Where are your forms?”

  “What forms?”

  “Your reservation forms.”

  “Look, can’t I just buy a ticket? Forget the berth.”

  “All first class is for berths.”

  Stalemate. The big clock over the platform entrance ticks on, aloof as Victoria herself.

  “Okay. What do I need?”

  “You need reservation forms.”

  “Where do I get them?” (I already know the answer.)

  “At the last window” (another sneer). “Sir.”

  Stumbling over more bodies. More waiting. Finally I am handed a long sheet of stained paper with enough questions to justify a mortgage.

  I shall obviously miss the train, but I’m in too deep now to think about anything else.

  Back in line again, my form completed. I’m allowed to go to the front of the queue and face the same sneering clerk.

  “All berths are booked…sir.”

  I’m about to have a fit. I’ll never get out of this place. Then the clerk peers more closely at my form.

  “You are British and you live in America?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a tourist?”

  “Yes—why? Do I need more papers?” (My turn to sneer now.)

  “Oh no, no, sir. Not at all. But you should have informed me.”

  “Why?”

  “There are special seats for tourists.”

  “You mean you’re not fully booked?”

  “Oh no, sir. You can have a berth. No problem at all.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “Yes. The office next to your previous place will be dealing with this, sir.”

  “You mean—I go somewhere else!”

  “Yes, sir. Of course. You are special category.”

  “You can’t give me a ticket?”

  “No, sir.”

  We stare at each other. I’m close to bursting point.

  A man in a large red turban steps up.

  “You will be requiring of a porter, sir?”

  “What? No! Wait. Yes. Okay. Let’s go! I’ve got five minutes!”

  The sprawling bodies moved for him (they never did for me).

  Another queue. Another clerk. More disdainful looks. Obviously “special category traveler” doesn’t impress him, he sees them all the time. But I do finally get my ticket.

  “You must be hurrying, sir,” the porter says.

  “Where do we go now?”

  “Please to follow me. Your name will be on the list.”

  Scampering onto the platform. A huge steam-spewing behemoth faces me. Train lovers would melt at the sight. I’m far too tired even to look at it. We run together down the length of the train. The carriages are bulging with bodies. Second class looks like a turbulent Hieronymus Bosch fantasy. The porter pauses by long lists of printed names (nonalphabetical).

  “Please to tell me your berth number, sir.”

  “I’ve only just bought a ticket. My name won’t be on any list.” I was fed up with the whole ridiculous process.

  “You do not have the reservation?” the porter asked with a worried frown.

  “I don’t know what I’ve got!”

  The porter looked utterly confused. Now I know I’m in trouble.

  “Can you ask somebody?” I know it’s a dumb idea. The platform is one mass of jostling humans, not a uniformed official in sight. “Look,” I said, mustering all my remaining sanity, “is this a first class carriage?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well leave the bags here. I’ll work it out.”

  He was obviously glad to be let off the hook and almost forgot to take his rupees before disappearing into the crowd.

  Somehow—I actually don’t know how—I found myself being led to a seat in a six-berth carriage by a very plump and smiling guard, obviously used to the ineptitudes of foreign travelers.

  I sank into my seat and closed my eyes.

  “You have your bedding chit, sir?” Another official!

  “My what?”

  “Your bedding chit, sir. For your sheet and pillow.”

  “You mean that’s not included?”

  “Oh no, sir. That is extra, you see. You must have a chit.”

  “Forget it. I’ll manage without bedding.”

  “It gets very cold in this train, sir.”

  I gave him ten rupees and asked him to do what he could to obtain bedding. The other five passengers were staring at me as if I were some kind of extraterrestrial being. I closed my eyes.

  The train gave a great scream, whistles were blowing, doors slamming. Two hefty jerks, and it began to ease out of the station. I opened my eyes again. It was 7:30 precisely. I’d made it!

  One of the passengers leaned over. “Ah, sir. You are from?”

  “U.S.A. I’m from America.”

  “Ah.” Five faces nodded expectantly.

  “This is the Delhi train, right?”

  “Delhi, sir?”

  “Delhi, right?”

  Much murmuring among the five faces. Oh, no! Don’t say I’ve got the wrong train. That would be the absolute last straw.

  “I was told this was the Delhi express.”

  Grins, laughter, and snorts. They all started talking at once.

  “Well, yes, sir, that is the name, but I don’t think it is what you would call a true express, sir. Oh, no, not at all, sir.”

  “Oh, no, by no means. Very slow train, sir.”

  “You should have got the 10:30 P.M. Much better, sir.”

  “Oh dear, dear sir, you have a long journey. Very difficult.”

  Who cares? The train’s moving. It’s going in the right direction. What’s a few extra hours? All I want is sleep anyway. I close my eyes again. My bedding man shakes my shoulder roughly. Another guard is standing beside him along with a large Indian businessman, looking very worried.

  “This is not your seat, sir. It belongs to this man.”

  “Well, this is the one I was given.” I felt utterly drained.

  “The other guard should not have done this, sir.”

  “Well, where is mine then?”

&
nbsp; “I don’t know, sir. We have no record of your name.”

  “Look, I’ve spent far too long waiting in lines for my ticket to be told you’ve got no record of my name.”

  And then someone else started talking—a very angry, officious Britisher, pouring out pompous phrases about the chaos of Indian rail travel, the terrible condition of the stations, the abysmal attitude of the clerks, and the appalling ethics of guards who accept tips for obtaining bedding and don’t produce any—all topped off with a lot of froth about the climate, the food, the incompetence of petty officials…a real colonial tirade. A bit overblown, I thought, but certainly hitting all the bases—and eloquently. Surprise! Surprise! It was me doing the talking! A full, fulminating, postcolonial persona had suddenly emerged from my deep subconscious. I stopped him in full flow, wrapped him up, and popped him back. I didn’t like him at all. I was very embarrassed.

  But it must have worked. I was left with my berth. The businessman shook my hand, and told me that other accommodation would be found for him. I began to apologize but he would have none of it. The porter appeared with my bedding. Someone helped me pull down the bed. The second guard returned to ask if I would like a cup of tea, which I gracefully declined. The five men in the carriage were very quiet, staring with some trepidation at this split-personality character in their midst. I smiled as charmingly as I could, bid them good-night, and slept the sleep of the gods through the long rocking night.

  Delhi was a long way away but “Sufficient unto the day are the trials thereof.” In India it’s a good phrase to keep repeating to yourself, over and over and over again.

  12. NEPAL—KATHMANDU

  An Unfinished Experience

  I had to come to hike in the high Himalayas. Another dream of youth. Every serious traveler has to journey to Nepal, at least once. True, there are other intriguing Himalayan destinations—Ladakh, Pakistan’s Hunza, Bhutan, Sikkim—but Nepal and its mystical top-o’-the-world capital, Kathmandu, always seem to have a special place in the hearts of world travelers.

  I decided to fly from New Delhi. I could have roughed it with all the other backpacking trekkies and taken the notorious fifty-five-hour bus ride from New Delhi to Kathmandu but, as I was planning to return later by bus back to India, it seemed a waste of time (admittedly a rather contrived rationalization). And anyway I’d waited long enough to get there—twenty-one years, maybe more—so I felt I owed myself a celebratory form of arrival, a sort of fanfare flight for fantasies realized.