Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh

contradictions that made India so very curious. At any given time, the country is in a hurry, racing to keep up with itself. In every sense Indians are in a constant fight to move ahead. People shove to board buses, push to get off trains and retrieve their baggage from overhead bins while planes are still taxiing. Yet, at instances of genuine urgency, there is a distinct predisposition towards nose-picking and bone idleness.
    As a soft brown goat on the track chewed its way through an empty Monaco biscuits’ wrapper, flicking its ears, the train appeared in the distance and the big push began. So far it was a game of chance as to which end of the platform we should wait. Thinking we had cracked the overhead signs, we had waited towards the top end of the platform, only to watch carriage A2 flash past. Our compartment was now 17 carriages away and the platform had turned into a mosh pit of madness. Boxes crowd-surfed, bodies pushed both ways in the doorways and at least one man lay face down on the ground, trampled beneath the mob. It reminded me of when the Foo Fighters had played the Isle of Wight.
    Once the rage had subsided, we snaked around the families holding hands through the bars and arrived at the door to A2 as train number nine, the Kerala Express to Kottayam creaked and began to move again. Our tickets were for the side upper and lower berths, which were ideal for such a long journey. Passengers in those seats have no reason to share sitting space with anyone else, and can gaze out of the window all day. But side berths cause issues at night. They are narrower than the main berths of a 2A compartment, and leave the lower passenger more susceptible to a face full of passing backside, and the upper passenger more likely to stay awake due to conferences that often take place in the aisle at unsociable hours. Claustrophobics will also want to avoid the upper berth, as the three closed sides and one drawn curtain create the feeling of lying in a moving coffin. It was barely midday, so sleep was a long way off. After sizing up our companions, we unpacked books and iPods, tucked away bags and settled into what was to be home for the next two days. I slotted my bookmark into the back of my book and smiled at Passepartout. So far we were getting on wonderfully well. He had a tendency to get rather ratty when deprived of nicotine and coffee, and I knew to avoid him when he was hungry, but otherwise he chatted to everyone, frequently stopping to take photographs of anyone who wished to pose, and ensuring that he had noted down each person’s address so that he could post them copies. When we were not reading chunks of our books out loud, swapping music, or amusing ourselves with the surrounding oddities, he was content to leave me to go about my own business while he wandered off to find souvenirs for his nephews and nieces.
    A bookseller was still on board and stopped by carrying a pile so high, that only his chin and fingertips were visible. The body of books was stacked with the usual suspects: Paulo Coelho, Chetan Bhagat, Dan Brown and Jeffrey Archer. Passepartout scanned it for Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth , but on principle, I refused to buy photocopied books. A man in the adjoining compartment had chosen The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari , which the boy was trying to slide out from the bottom of his pile, when another boy came past jingling luggage locks, followed by a high-pitched vendor selling ‘chackobar’ and ‘badderscatch’ ice cream. All three pushed to get past one another in the aisle. It was like a scene from a Peter Sellers film. The vendors vanished and I went back to my book, eager to find out Dolly’s fate.
    ‘Excuse me darling, I have a message for you.’
    A syrupy voice purred from behind me. It spoke up again.
    ‘Excuse me darling, I have a message for you.’
    I looked around.
    ‘Excuse me darling, I have a message for you.’
    Wondering if the hallucinogenic rice was still