EXCLUSIVE: THE INDIAN VOYAGE OF MICHAEL FIELD <<1>>

The unglazed small pottery mug rocks gently on the table, its sweet hot South Indian coffee warm and satisfying. And the first of many over the next 26 hours. The mystery of Indian Railways around me, in this AC 2nd Class sleeper. Above are a Bengali couple who seem to be irritating the guard. Two people, one bunk. Mostly they are indifferent to him and when he is not arguing with them they kind of sing softly to each other. They are polite to the rest of the passengers, but very much involved in just themselves. They are escaping the crowds of Kolkata’s four days of Puja to holiday on a beach in the south. On the two bunks in front of me rest two businessmen. Friendly, but they don’t seem to want to chat about much. One has a very noisy cell phone that lets the carriage know he has a text message. This is a problem in India with so many competing phone companies; as we sweep across the great Ganges Plains we swing through different cells and every company sends a message to bid for the service. They are only on board for three hours. The other two, across the aisle, are a mother and son. He is about 25, I guess. The mother, who has come with all the doings of a complete Indian meal, fusses over him. Later she says she wants him to be a photojournalist.
They have secured their suitcases under the seats with a heavy padlocked chain. Not sure why but middle class India is big on libelling itself and fearing the worst.
Now and again a steady parade of men selling things go by. Magazines and sweets, coffee and chai. I am addicted to the coffee. Dinner is two hours away. An odd cockroach or two scurries around and the squat toilet promises, already, the ultimate discomfort of Indian Rail. But how else could one travel in India except in this most democratic of ways, sweeping down the long Coromandal Coast, forming the western side of the Bay of Bengal. Why any one would want to swap the dreariness of Dumdum Airport for the excitement of Howrah Station is beyond me. Easily one of the great terminus of the world. And a starting point.
This diary though should start at Gate One at Bangkok’s Don Maung Airport just before midnight. In a vast terminal the fact that the Kolkata flight leaves from Gate One suggests something of the low standing the city has, even in the eyes of airline planners. Gate One is a long way off and down a flight of stairs from where everybody else leaves and arrives from. Still, few complaints; Don Maung is about to close, replaced with a swank new giant airport built out in the swamps on the road to Pattaya. The gate is crowded with mainly Indians, and mainly men all with excessive amounts of carry on baggage. All wrapped up in black plastic. From a previous trip I recognise them; the clothes traffickers. They come and go in a day, sweeping in on Bangkok markets and winging back to Kolkata with the takings.
Two hours later we’re coming into Kolkata; passengers are told to stay seated until the aircraft has taxied to a halt. Thai International cabin crew frantically, pointlessly try to keep passengers charging up the aisles. India might well be on the edge of becoming a super economic power, but right now their airports (with perhaps the honourable exception of Bangalore) remain firmly locked in the mid-1950s, DC3 era. One modest moment of triumph for me though; it appears I am one of only a handful of foreign passport holders; I have a choice of immigration officers and are threw in a minute. Big deal. The bags are a long time coming. The clothing traffickers have hundreds of black bags; astonishingly one of the men even has the classic air-craft hijacking box cutting knife on him in order to replace the bags immediately. So much for Thai security - even in the wake of a coup in Bangkok. An hour and a half later - close to 2am - I am finally out to be greeted by my guide and driver.
Kolkata is mostly asleep, although crews are working on tram lines and roads are being paved and every where preparations continue for the four day Puja Festival that is about to hit Kolkata. I am not tempted to stay for it; even on a quiet day Kolkata’s crowds can be daunting for me; a religious festival attracting every Bengali on the planet has little attraction.
The Fairlawn Hotel gates swing open and I am in my hotel for the night. A marvellous old relic of the Raj - perhaps even the East India Company - it rates two stars in the guides. Its easy to see why it cannot have any more; the bathrooms slope away, the rooms are little changed in over a century and the beds are not wildly comfortable. The meals offer no choices; provincial England mostly. But the Fairlawn is about pure character, presided over by an ancient, lively and lovely Armenian Bengali refugee. No where else in Kolkata is worth staying at; a couple of blocks away from Park Street, a short walk from the marvellous Maidan. What more do you need. Its strangely lavish garden shelters guests from the harsh noises outside.
A couple of hours later and my contacts from Bajaj Electricals arrive - driver Arjun Singh and sales executive Swapan Ghosh. Their role was to give me a tour of Kolkata. I had some ideas, but Swapan had others. He was right. For old time sakes we had a quick drive over the Howrah Bridge, that magnificent, ungainly 60-year-old structure over the Ganges. And then it was back into a crowded part of the city where the roads narrowed and the only way to get in was on foot. There was the fantastic site of artists and workers labouring to produce hundreds of giant lavish earthen statues of Hindu gods to be used in the Puja. Vast, they took an army of sweating men to manhandle out to trucks on slightly wider streets. And for four days in great centres built just for the purpose, the statues will do duty to thousands of faithful. And then they will be cast into the Ganges to return to the mud they were moulded from in the first place.
Later we visit a Crematorium on the banks of the Ganges. Having been to Varanasi I was unfazed by public burning of bodies; the point though of this trip was to see the advancement West Bengal was making. The choice was between traditional burning on wooden pyres or cooking down in electric ovens. All around we various people conducting rites; it seemed perfectly functional and unemotional. And here, unlike Varanasi, the last remains don’t get tossed into the Ganges. In Kolkata Bengalis have far too much respect for the living in the river; they make their rightly famous Bengal fish curry out of them.
At one point we called into the railway office. My ticket had been approved, but they needed to see my passport. Only later was explained that I had got a berth on the train under the foreign quota. They needed to see I was foreign. The ticket clerk though had other ideas; he too owned a Nikon digital camera and was keen to discuss techniques.
The afternoon ended with another bridge and over to Kolkata’s utterly divine botanical gardens. One could be fussy and say they were not so much gardens but a kind of urban forest. A place one has to see, a piece of rare beauty made poignant by being surrounded by one of the world’s great cities, densely crowded and polluted. Throughout the park, discrete but beautiful, sat young couples. Courting each other, enjoying each other in the peace of their surrounds. It wasn’t crowded at all and everybody knew the delicacy and sweetness of each couple. Romantic and hopeful.
Back in the heat and dust of Kolkata the day ended at two of my favourite places: Oxford Books on Park Street (three books purchased for the price of perhaps a New Zealand magazine) and the sprawling Newmarket which, despite the name, is around 200 years old. It offers everything, and everything is offered to you by persistent, repetitive hustlers. They do, however, seem to be put off their stride by a smile and inertia. People who just walk around and look and don’t buy must be very vexing.
Today it was an early walk around. Kolkata is a great place to watch people start their day; its inhabitants work hard and their start is determined. A group of western looking girls, in uniform, accompanied by a security guard at the front, and another at the back, walk up the street to school. They turn out to be Armenians; the daughters, granddaughters and even great granddaughters of those who were made refugees by Turkey in one of the 20th Century’s first genocides. It underscores a simple fact about India; crowded it may be, plagued by poverty always and yet India welcomes refugees in a way no other nation has ever done so. And has done it, without question or protest, for much of its 5000 year history.
Arjun comes back with the car and another Bajaj executive, Gopen San, to take me to the station. Howrah. I am not some kind of train spotting groupe; I have no idea what is hauling this long train through the night but the station at the other side of the Howrah Bridge is astounding. You hear stories of how it can be dangerous; feral children turned into nightmarish beggars and thugs is a popular story. And no doubt there are many homeless children there - some, it seems, even by choice. Twice beggars cling to me but in the sea of people, all moving to different announcements, it was hard to notice them. Platform 14 and the mail train from Bombay is still there. Eventually it moves and the platform is jammed with people waiting for the Coromandal Express. One more ritual is played out though; the lists of passengers with confirmed seats is suddenly posted. People crowd around. Further up the platform poorer people jostle for position waiting for the cheaper carriages. You cannot reserve seats on them; its first in first served. And it can get physical. Indians - perhaps due to the population - know not to be polite at such times. But it comes with no malice and everybody knows the rules. Its not personal. And once everybody has a seat the combat is over and the quiet ritual of a long train journey begins. Those who didn’t get on will wait for the later train, or two.
The food on the Coromandal is simple but tasty. Chicken and rice, or something veg. Endless coffee. Steady flow of sellers of all kinds of things coming through.
Through the night my companions changed. The businessmen got off at 10pm and the two lovers suddenly had two bunks. But not for long. A husband and wife with a son arrived; the bunks were for them. As we settled down a couple of soldiers wandered though; it has to be remembered India suffers from terrorism. Not that those two could have done much about it. One was armed with an ancient .303 Lee Enfield rifle. Noble looking firing piece, but hardly useful in a narrow railway carriage. The other had an old style sten gun. Still, they are here and, I assume protecting us.