Ticket to Ride

by Tom Chesshyre

  After this brush with Indian 'royalty' – and my tranquil time in the hills (where you do not have to be Buddhist to appreciate the deep spirituality of the setting) – I go to Pathankot Cantt, the closest main station to Dharamshala for New Delhi, to catch the sleeper train back to the capital. It is to leave at 21:23 and arrive at 05:00.

  I sit on a bench on a crowded platform near motorbikes wrapped in sacks of straw for protection during transportation and a pile of old-fashioned traveller's chests. Birdsong comes from the rafters. Mosquitoes buzz by my ankles. A tea-seller shambles up and down calling out: 'Chai! Chai!'

  A filthy red, white and blue train comes: the Rajdhani Express to New Delhi from Jammu. I board and enter the first-class sleeper carriage. The fare for this overnight journey is £26. The average annual income in India is about £400. I'm blowing a month's salary.

  In my cabin, which has a single bunk, I meet Mr Malhodra. He is a retired colonel from the Indian army, 'seventy-plus' and, when I ask his first name, he replies, 'Is it not enough that I give you my last name?'

  He is lying on the bottom berth, tucked beneath a wine-red blanket, next to a tattered wine-red curtain. He has a frog-like face and a habit of shaking his head from side to side. He is wearing khaki pyjamas (perhaps they are old army issue). He is coming from Jammu, where he visited the Hindu shrine of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi on a four-day pilgrimage. His suitcase is chained to a loop – placed there for this purpose – beneath his bed. He has been taking trains since 1964.

  'Steam engines, I remember,' he says. 'They look nice, but speed slow. A lot of smoke.'

  A tray of food is delivered to our door by an assistant. It's for me: a tray of vegetable curry with rice and roti bread. As I eat, Mr Malhodra talks.

  He likes croquet, dislikes cricket, can bear volleyball and considers the train food to be 'too heavy'. He is a man of definite opinions. The narrow-gauge train in Darjeeling has 'scenic views and tea gardens en route: very nice'. He has a daughter who works as a physiotherapist and lives in Tennessee, where he once visited: 'I didn't like the place much. East or west, home is best. I don't like leaving my house.'

  He shows me the locks on his briefcase, as if to ensure that I know that the briefcase is locked. He tells me I may turn on the light on my top bunk, if I like, during the night. My food tray is collected and Mr Malhodra indicates that I should go to sleep.

  So I climb to my bunk and listen to a brief phone conversation Mr Malhodra has with his wife: 'Journalist from London. He took my interview.'

  I fall asleep to the rumble of the engine. We are right next to the locomotive. Horns blow. Fittings creak. The Indian night slips by.

  There you have Indian trains: I love them. You meet a lot of people, and they take you places.

  For the sake of good housekeeping, the locomotive on the Rajdhani Express was Swiss built, of indeterminate age, with a top speed of 110 kmph and 'easy, easy' to drive (I know this as I asked Sunil Tigga, the driver, at New Delhi station). It was also a WAP-7 30294. There are many YouTube films of this one: it appears to be quite legendary.

  One last tip-off: any rail enthusiast must visit the National Rail Museum in New Delhi. It is a shrine to old steam locos, with enough to see to keep even the most knowledgeable Boocock happy.

  Indian Railways' nickname is 'Lifeline of the Nation'. Go to India and you'll soon find out why: the chaos yet the order, the characters, the clamour, the grime, the joy taken in a simple ride.

  It was the same – with a twist – for Mark Twain on a journey from Calcutta to Lucknow in 1895, as he describes in his travelogue Following the Equator: 'The train stopped at every village; for no purpose connected with business, apparently. We put out nothing, we took aboard nothing. The train bands stepped ashore and gossiped with friends for a quarter of an hour, then pulled out and repeated this at the succeeding villages. We had thirty-five miles to go and six hours to do it in, but it was plain that we were not going to make it. It was then that the English officers said it was now necessary to turn this gravel train into an express. So they gave the engine-driver a rupee and told him to fly. It was a simple remedy. After that we made ninety miles an hour.'

  Indian trains do seem to go by their own rules.

  Now I'm heading almost due south, about 2,000 miles, to a nation with train lines just as colourful, offering an important new lifeline to a place that is beginning to open up to the world.

  5

  SRI LANKA: ON THE REUNIFICATION EXPRESS

  TRAINS, POLITICS AND trouble seem to attract one another. Back in Kosovo, the line to Serbia remains shut, while memories of tracks being used to deport hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians are still strong. In China, where the 1911 'railway crisis' led to the overthrow of the Last Emperor, current schemes to connect Beijing to Hong Kong by bullet train, as well as the already-completed fast link to Tibet, have taken on powerful political meaning. In India, British imperial rule was, as Gandhi observed, underpinned by the laying of tracks; while today's trains into Pakistan and Bangladesh are journeys that continue to cover sensitive ground (though I did not feel any of those tensions on my 'toy train' to Shimla).

  In Europe, railways have long been intertwined with both politics and nationalism. Some believe that Belgium and Germany might have fallen apart during crucial periods of the nineteenth century were it not for trains; Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, is known to have constructed tracks in the hope of binding his vast country and creating a sense of national unity. In Britain, railways were key to the success of industrialisation, creating the wealth to fuel the British Empire and shaping the Victorian era. More recently, the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Calais has witnessed flare-ups between security guards and hopeful immigrants to Britain fleeing unstable countries, many trying to sneak on to trains, while the much-debated project to construct a high-speed line from London to Birmingham through the picturesque countryside of the Chilterns has politicians of all colours up in arms.

  Where there are trains, there are usually stories behind trains – and most of the time they're contentious.

  In Sri Lanka it's no exception.

  'This is a time of hope and change'

  Colombo to Jaffna

  It is 05:15 at Fort station in Colombo. The sodium-lit streets of Sri Lanka's capital are quiet on the way in by taxi, though many of the city's autorickshaws – and their catchy (if sometimes gloomy) slogans – are already on the move: Peace comes from within… Who flies not high, falls not low… Crazing and desire will ruin your life. And my favourite: Don't let them chang you [sic].

  In the humid early-morning semi-darkness outside the station my attention is caught by a flash of gold near the whitewashed facade of the station's entrance. This comes from a statue of Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, an American from New Jersey who founded the Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society in the nineteenth century. A fresh garland of flowers hangs round his neck. Olcott, a military officer and journalist, is a much-revered figure in Sri Lanka for his efforts to safeguard the rights of Buddhists during the time of British colonial rule, says a plaque. The religion was seen as an important expression of the country's identity during the period of British control from 1815 to 1948, when independence was granted. This statue, in its prominent spot outside Colombo's main station, seems to be a symbol of defiance to the old colonialists.

  A little bit of politics… and I haven't even stepped on my train.

  In the narrow ticket hall a handful of bronzed backpackers mill about. They're blond and in their twenties; possibly Scandinavian. Two of the men wear sarongs. They seem to be confused about their tickets to Kandy – and they do not appear to be rail enthusiasts. Male trainspotters, in my albeit limited experience, do not generally wear skirts.

  On my platform, there are no westerners, though the cramped space is crammed with people and bags. A colourful kiosk sells sweets and papers. A little doorway opens to the neon-lit Cafeteria Smak, which promises to be 'full of natural goodness'. A
sleepyeyed Railway Protection Force officer, with a blue peaked cap, olive uniform and polished shoes, stands by the empty track. A leather belt cuts into his prodigious waistline, and a metal chain hangs in a loop from a button of his shirt, disappearing into a pocket. Perhaps it is connected to a watch or a whistle.

  He speaks some English.

  'Are the trains generally on time?' I ask.

  'No,' he says.

  'Is this train on time?'

  'I don't know,' he says.

  At least he gives a straight answer.

  I am about to catch a train northwards to Jaffna, a distance of about 250 miles. Until a few months before my visit, this had not been possible. The line between Colombo and Jaffna had been closed for 24 years due to the troubles that beset the Indian Ocean nation during its bloody 26-year civil war, which ended in 2009. Fighting between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan Army had long made the journey unsafe. Rebels had blown up a train in 1985, killing 12 civilians and 22 soldiers, wounding 44 others. The service kept on for a while but was closed indefinitely in 1990.

  Now, after repairs to the tracks since the fighting stopped, the trains are back – an important symbolic moment in Sri Lanka as the city of Jaffna is the cultural and spiritual centre of the country's Tamil population. When the inaugural train rolled into Jaffna station in October 2014, it was accompanied by the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa amid great fanfare: drumming, piping, singing and dancing. Rajapaksa had joined the train for the final 27 miles of its journey. Many regarded the 'new' railway as a moment when the Tamil-majority north and the Sinhalesemajority south literally came together, drawing a line beneath the troubles of the past. This is also seen as a pivotal time for developing tourism in the north, bringing this part of Sri Lanka to the wider world.

  Quite a lot of politics… and I still haven't stepped on my train.

  I ask the officer what he thinks of it all.

  'Tamil people come here and Sinhalese people go there,' he says. 'They transport their things. This is very useful, in fact.'

  This seems a fair enough analysis. I thank him and go over to Cafeteria Smak, where I queue to buy a couple of 'fish buns', unsure exactly what they are. These are handed to me in a paper bag and feel quite light.

  Back on the platform, the train has arrived. It is pale blue, shiny, long and has a snub-shaped nose. Chaos has broken out with everyone rushing to board. I find seat number 21 in Carriage A and settle down to watch the madness calm down outside and start up again within the train. I seem to be amid a dozen or so involved in an early-morning family party of some sort. There are many plastic boxes with flatbreads and curry smells. Food is soon being consumed on red plastic plates. Flasks of tea and bottles of fruit juice are handed around. This is to continue for most of the 6 hour 10 minute journey. It is my happiest train yet, and we haven't even left the station.

  The train departs at 05:55, only five minutes late, passing the office of both the Stationmaster (Operating) and the Chief Stationmaster (Administrative). My guess is that the chief doesn't have to get his hands too operationally dirty dealing with the public – that's why he's got the top job, sitting in his office, possibly keeping up to date with the latest cricket scores. Just about every single notice in Fort station is sponsored by a company named Fashion Bug, including the exit and toilet signs. GENTS WAITING ROOM: FASHION BUG, KEEP THE TRAIN STATION CLEAN: FASHION BUG, TICKETS TO KANDY: FASHION BUG. One way or another, the words 'Fashion Bug' seem to seep into your brain.

  For those keen to know, the train is a Sri Lanka Railways Class S12; a diesel multiple unit, which I recall from my train schooling in Kosovo means that the engines are under the carriages as well as in the locomotive. This one was built in China in 2012 (I managed to get a snap of the number at the front and have been able to look it up on the internet via my mobile phone). The service is named the Yal Devi, which is Tamil for Queen of Jaffna.

  There's no harm in checking out these things, I suppose.

  My seat is in a first-class air-conditioned carriage and cost 1,500 rupees (£7.20). We are soon trundling out of Fort station – built by the British in 1877, though the first trains in Sri Lanka came in 1864 – and humming and faintly rocking across a metalframed bridge above a wide, muddy river. A kindly, grey-haired man wearing a white uniform with epaulettes checks the tickets. Beyond the bridge, thick jungle encloses the tracks, with fronds and leaves scraping against the windows. It's almost as though the train has yet to establish its right of way.

  The jungle opens onto a shanty town of decrepit breeze-block buildings with corrugated roofs. Some do not even have roofs; instead tarpaulins have been hoisted above, held down with old bricks or whatever the owners could lay their hands on. Just as in India, poverty appears to be taken for granted. Women hang washing on lines not far from great mounds of decomposing litter. Yet within a minute or so of such scenes, a modern neighbourhood emerges with a Porsche showroom and smart apartments. A commuter train heading to Fort station chugs by, the doors left open on each side and many faces peering out. A Buddhist temple flashes past: red, gold and green, with curving columns and figurines. At just about every level crossing, dozens of mopeds and autorickshaws are waiting – and at most, there are smaller Buddhist shrines.

  The sense of bustle and beaver-like commerce is strong. According to the World Bank, Sri Lanka is striving to become an 'upper middle-income country'. The economists' latest findings show that the GDP per capita is £2,147 (or £179 a month). This is up from £564 in 2002 (or £47 a month). So financial matters appear to be heading in the right direction, although the World Bank also points out that 36 per cent of the population is living in poverty, with the highest numbers in the former Tamil Tiger conflict zones in the north and east.

  From the train tracks, a series of images begins to accumulate: piles of smouldering rubbish, mango trees heavy with fruit, herons by a riverbank, a man asleep in his autorickshaw at a station, lakes with lotus lilies, thick fog above a banana plantation, a plain of paddy fields, a stray dog at a siding, thin white birds perched on fat brown cows (pecking and picking out ticks), shiny Honda motorbike showrooms, impenetrable-looking jungle, peach-coloured clouds, clattering bridges, schoolkids in bright white uniforms… The scenery shifts and mutates as the Queen of Jaffna rolls on.

  Before arriving in India, in 1896 Mark Twain visited Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was known during British rule. The purpose of his grand world tour, involving so many early train journeys and described in Following the Equator, was to raise cash by giving paid talks along the way and publishing his travelogue at the end. The creator of Huckleberry Finn, who first worked as a printer after leaving school, had invested US$300,000 in a typesetting machine – the Paige Compositor – that was supposed to revolutionise printing. It did not. It was far too fiddly. Only two were ever made and it was a devastating financial blow for the author. Twain's US$300,000 is about US$8,000,000 in today's money, and was just about all he had.

  I have brought a copy of Following the Equator, which I'd begun in India, with me and it makes a good 'train read'. On his ship from Sydney to Sri Lanka, Twain describes enjoying watching cricket being played on deck: 'They enclose the promenade deck with nettings and keep the ball from flying overboard, and the sport goes very well, and is properly violent and exciting.' When he arrives in Colombo for a short stopover before a change of vessel onwards to Bombay, he is struck by how 'utterly Oriental' the country is with its tropical vegetation, 'proper deadly snakes, and fierce beasts of prey, and the wild elephant and the monkey'. It is unclear whether Twain takes to Sri Lanka's train tracks, although on one journey outside of Colombo he is impressed by the colours of peoples' clothing: '… a splendid green, a splendid blue, a splendid yellow, a splendid purple, a splendid ruby, deep and rich… [a] radiant panorama, that wilderness of rich colour, that incomparable dissolving-view of harmonious tints'. He is ashamed to be dressed so boringly himself and he is also shocked to see some children from a missionary school dr
essed primly and piously in clothes reminiscent of a 'summer Sunday in an English or American village'.

  The bright white uniforms of the children I see all these years on are perhaps not quite so prim and pious, but they strike a chord with his words. And it is a little sad to imagine Samuel Clemens, as Twain was born, traipsing about in these parts to see the sights at Galle Face – in his early sixties, with a shock of grey hair, bushy eyebrows and moustache – jotting down his observations, while dwelling on the dreadful typesetting machine that had him chasing round the globe to claw back a few bucks.