Stuart Campbell's Blog
Jhaipur to Phulera Junction
Jhairpur Station belongs to the insect realm not the human world. Initial bewilderment was compounded by a posse of youths pointing at my bald head and asking, ‘How old you?’ The reply ‘61’ elicited hoots of laughter and the sarcastic comment directed at my spouse, ‘Nice young man’.
She probably agreed with the underlying sentiment. Presumably few men in India grow old enough for their hair to drop out. The booking hall presented the odd challenge of deciding if Phulera junction was at the end of broad gauge or standard track.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel meets Thomas the Tank Engine. The long ticket queue was seething with frustration and impatience. The Fat Controller rescued Morag and directed her to a shorter parallel queue for ‘ladies’. She emerged effing and blinding some fifteen minutes later clutching two tickets in her good hand. Her other wrist was bruised and lacerated. Etiquette dictated that when in grasping distance of the small serving hatch that you put your hand in and held on for grim death while the other players tried to break your grip. But she is from Glasgow and doesn’t take prisoners.
When the train arrived those waiting poured on with the efficiency of water funnelling down a drain. An enterprising punter with an eye for the main chance hurled himself at an open window and promptly stuck in the aperture, his Billy Bunter legs flailing before he popped through and presumably landed head first in someone’s lap. A relative then proceeded to pass various several small children after him.
An elderly man paralysed from the waist down and doubly incontinent, as witnessed by the trail in his wake, was painstakingly pulling himself on his hands towards the train. As he got close he was hauled onboard. Two thoughts came to mind.
The first was the final angry line from Edwin Morgan’s poem In the Snack Bar, (perhaps the only poem to engage the attention of generations of bored Standard pupils), ‘Dear Christ to be born for this!” And the blind man was only going for a pee for goodness sake.
The other was the hypercritical interview between George Galloway and Saddam Hussain. ‘Sir, I salute your indefatigability’. Respect where due, George. Respect where due.
Every overhead luggage rack was occupied by small, desiccated women who had perhaps been there for decades. The Haymarket to Queen Street shuttle will never be the same again. I will certainly not avert my gaze the next time I maintain slightly overlong eye contact with a sultry business woman.
The secret is to stare unflinchingly, long and hard. Next time I will unashamedly read other people’s laptop contents upside down, and follow with my eyes whatever tattoos snake breastwards.
En route we passed an Emergency and Accident Support train presumably packed with medical supplies and cutting equipment. That evening the BBC World News showed hideous images of a rail crash in West Bengal. I hope the self propelled carriage sped through the night in time to make a difference.
Wonderful blog, Stuart, all the more striking for telling me that absolutely nothing has changed in the nearly thirty years since I spent a couple of months exploring India by rail. Same chaos everywhere that I experienced.
But I bet one thing has changed. The omnipresent screams of ‘CHAI, CHAI!’ from the tea sellers touting ready-made thick sweet milky tea poured from giant kettles kept hot by a metal cage and burning coals suspended beneath the kettle - they likely still exist. But I bet the tea is now served in paper or - worse - plastic or styro cups. In 1981, every single-use disposable cup was hand spun of clay, thin as paper and far more delicate - and destined to be launched out the window to shatter along the tracks, which were at times near-buried with fragmented dull brown clay shards.
Come to think of it, I withdraw the bet. The cups might still be the same as they were 30 years ago, too. Or at least I hope they might be.
Happy trails.
ron
By Ron McMillan on Wednesday 21st July 2010 at 7:49am