Indian Takeaway (8 page)

Our relief is premature. We are joined by a short neat man with large glasses and a fulsome beard. At first I mistake him for one of our Muslim brethren and I quietly enjoy the multi-faith microcosm that this carriage represents: the Glaswegian Sikh, the Hindus and the Muslim. But he’s not a Muslim; the short, neat-bearded man starts talking and informs us that he is a Christian pastor. No sooner has he established his theological credentials than he has a laptop out, unremitting in his desire to save souls for Christ’s sake. I have to say the phrase ‘Christ’s sake’ sprang to mind quite often during this journey.

The pastor has a kind face and matching eyes, but he does look tired. No doubt God’s work is never done and requires significant overtime. The contented quiet that I have happily shared with the Hindu family has now been hijacked. Within the next few minutes we have been told that he has just completed his fourth degree, adding to his PhD in Religion (no surprise there, then). He works for Church hospital groups, raising funds and helping with administration. He has been to Trivandrum for a seminar on clinical pastoral care and is now heading back to Chennai. He starts talking to the young family, which it soon transpires are no ordinary young family. The man is the heir to the Indian equivalent of John Lewis. His family owns eight massive stores all over India, stocking everything a middle-class Indian home could want. I joke with him that like a dentist has bad teeth, he probably has a broken toaster. I don’t think the British ubiquity of toasters is the same in India. He looks at me curiously, without laughing. Not only is he the heir to a multinational department market chain he also seems a little anti-religion, which makes for fun in a carriage
shared by an evangelical Christian pastor with a laptop and four degrees.

I feel it a good opportunity to explore the carriage. I extricate myself and wander. I see a family of short people who have set up a conveyor belt of sandwich-making. The father hands the mother a slice; she butters; the daughter jams and the younger son brings the slices together in sandwich form, and eats. Beyond them a skinny girl faces her mother, both sitting cross-legged. On their newspaper plates they feast on idli and chutney; nothing could be simpler, nothing could be more delicious. An idli is a steamed dumpling made from a paste of ground rice. The idli itself has no great flavour; it is light and airy, but it is a fabulous conduit for flavour, and when combined with a rich coconut, chilli chutney can elevate the eater to another place altogether.

I return to my compartment hungry. As if by magic, Mr John Lewis offers me a local delicacy: battered and deep-fried plantain. He can’t be aware of this most beautiful, most circular of ironies that I, a boy from Glasgow, should find myself on a train in deepest, now darkest south India on a train eating something battered and deep fried. Alas, the plantain only serves to accentuate my hunger and I am more than a little relieved when the porter comes to take our food orders. There seem to be a number of dishes on offer, but I fail fully to comprehend the porter. Mr John Lewis steps in gallantly and translates for me. There appear to be three meals to choose from: a chapatti, a paratha meal or vegetable biryani. Embarrassed by my inability to understand the porter’s Hindi and fearful to ask for a more detailed explanation of what a ‘meal’ entails, I opt for the biryani. How can you go wrong with rice and vegetables?

While we are waiting for the food to be served, the pastor, who has failed to say anything for a few minutes, rediscovers
his calling and fires up his laptop. He decides to show Mr John Lewis an image he had stored on his computer. Having shared the image with him he spins his laptop round so I too can be privy to the visual feast. It is a photograph that the pastor has taken in Bangalore airport around one of the food kiosks in the departure lounge. The image shows a medium-sized rat nestled inside an otherwise exemplary glass-topped display of food; the rat is nibbling away at an aloo boondi, a spiced mashed potato ball, battered and deep fried. Obviously it’s the sort of dish loved by humans and rodents. Let me be clear: this food kiosk is not a shabby, side-of-the-road type of affair. It’s a beautifully clean, modern Indian food outlet. It would not look out of place in Heathrow airport, save for the rat.

Quite why the pastor has the image on his laptop soon becomes apparent. He is on a crusade against big companies squeezing small businesses out of existence. And Mr John Lewis is big business personified. My holy friend tells me that this 30rupee boondi sells for a sixth of the price in a street stall, yet people feel that street stalls are less hygienic. They are willing to pay the 25-rupee difference in an airport, yet the food is no less unhygienic.

It’s a valid point, but I still feel that having a screensaver of a rat eating an airport snack is more than a little weird. Mr John Lewis looks so angry he may explode at any moment with rage. He was not best pleased with the pastor prior to his rant on big business; he is decidedly less well disposed now.

The awkward post-rat silence is broken by the food arriving. I appear to be the only diner. The pastor seems not to eat and the John Lewises have packed a lovely meal of parathas and chutney. My vegetable biryani is surprisingly bland: a massive helping of rice with carrots and peas and the very occasional guest appearance made by a floret of cauliflower. It is accompanied
by a thimbleful of onion raita. Rice for Goliath, raita for David. But I eat, uncomplaining and grateful for the sustenance.

Then it is time to lower bunks and make beds, all of which happens noiselessly and surprisingly efficiently on Indian trains. Passengers become automatons for those few minutes as sheets are spread, pillows placed and blankets unfurled. Individuals exchange places in the cramped space as if choreographed by some unseen director. At times it is almost balletic.

It is a strange night. I drift in and out of a fitful sleep. The constant motion of the train lulls me off into a gentle sleep, then the infuriatingly frequent stops allow new blood on the train: loud, awake people who fill the lower bunks in other parts of the carriage before themselves drifting off to sleep.

Having started my journey some twenty-three hours earlier we finally arrive in Chennai. No matter what the clocks in the station tell me, my body seems to refuse to accept that it’s three o’clock in the afternoon. More asleep than awake, I haul myself out of the train and make for the front of the station. I hope to catch a taxi the remaining 60km or so I need to travel to reach Mamallapuram. I find a decent-looking man outside the station, who ushers me excitedly towards the car park. My Hindi is terrible so I am blissfully unaware of the fact that my decent-looking man is not the owner of a taxi; he is an auto rickshaw driver. For the uninitiated, an auto rickshaw is a scooter around which is attached the paraphernalia of passenger transport. It’s like a small covered couch being pulled along by a 75cc engine. The sides are open adding a certain vibrancy to the journey. They are invariably black with yellow hoods and are best described as rats on wheels.

I love travelling in auto ricks. You feel much more part of the city, hearing and seeing everything at first hand rather than from the back seat of a cab. Besides which, right now I have little
choice, since there would appear to be a dearth of cabs around. I agree a price of 500 rupees with the driver. That would seem to be the only thing we agree, since I’m not altogether sure he knows exactly where we are going. It’s not till much later on this 60km journey that I fully understand the implications of what I have agreed to.

We stop to check the destination with the local English speaker. This is a bizarre three-way conversation between me (who is speaking English), the rickshaw driver (who is speaking Tamil), and the local English speaker (who speaks both). The driver then refuels and checks the air in the tyres. ‘Long journey,’ he says to me and almost smiles. Long journey. I should have realised then …

If you are unused to travelling by auto rickshaw, then a short journey around a city can be quite hair-raising and a tad bruise-worthy. I am not new to the auto rick experience, yet what I hadn’t fully taken into account was the fact that Mamallapuram is not just 60km away. It’s 60km down a broken, pot-hole-infested, sometimes non-existent road that would seem like an arduous quest even in a luxurious four-wheel drive.

I am bumped and thumped and thrown around the whining little auto rickshaw for the best part of two long hours. My already tired body soon aches with the unrelenting physical assault of the journey.

Seven things I saw on my two-hour auto rickshaw journey

When I eventually get to Mamallapuram I am shattered. I set off from Kovalam nineteen hours ago. I feel defeated. This defeat is compounded by the auto rickshaw driver reneging on the deal we had struck when leaving Chennai. The 500 rupees we had agreed on has now escalated to 700 rupees. I refuse point blank to be blackmailed and after much haggling I pay him 650 rupees. As I walk away from his wronged rebukes I realise that I have saved myself a massive sixty pence. I try to convince myself that it isn’t about the money: who can put a price on principle?

I check into Greenwoods Beach Resort and fall face first and fully clothed into bed. Which is a mistake because the mattress is the typically hard Indian type: great for your back, not so good for your face. But I sleep.

Three hours later the afternoon has become evening. I am woken by the sound of an errant child, bemoaning his lot in a language I guess to be Tamil. A day ago I was coddled in the five-star luxury of the Taj, and here I find myself in an altogether
different world. A basic room with a (hard-mattressed) double bed, a dresser, an Igo TV set with an Onida remote control (which doesn’t work), a small bathroom, no toilet paper, no soap. The only wall adornment is a row of four rust-coloured pegs; there used to be five. There is an AC unit, the noisiest AC unit I have ever experienced and of course it would have to be right over the head of the bed. But the room, such as it is, is clean and comfortable and it’s home for the next few days. It has been more than twenty-four hours since I last felt clean. I need to feel clean. I wash the day’s journey away with the only water that is available: dirty, cold water and I step out to examine the rest of the ‘resort’ that fatigue had blinded me to on my arrival.

Greenwoods is actually a very charming place. An old rambling house, it is built around a beautiful central garden, tended to and loved by the family that run the guest house. The garden is full of trees and flowers and plants and in the very centre of this fecundity sits a multi-coloured shrine to Lord Ganesh, the elephant god. It’s low season so there seems to be more family that guests.

There is a terrace all the way around the first fl oor, looking in and down on the garden. The errant child is attempting to cajole an older female relative into coming and seeing something high up in a tree. She refuses to move. The child disappears out of view and returns with a long cane at the end of which is a home-fashioned wire hoop. The cane is perhaps three times longer than the grubby-faced boy, but when has endeavour ever stopped a four year old? He lifts the stick up into a mango tree and after a series of sharp, awkward movements, his bounty is released. A large green mango falls to earth. Enormous actually.

The green-fruited prize assuages his Tamilian moans, and he and his younger sister now work out how best to cut the bugger. The joys of childhood.