India 2003

October 2003

The train stops for ten minutes at Kanpur Central. I got out to stretch my legs, look at the magazine stall, and get something to eat.

I bought some sabji in a leaf-bowl, and some puri in another. Then I bought a couple of magazines – the English and Hindi editions of the same issue of India Today, to compare the content and to see how close the translations were of any articles that were in both versions. I got into conversation with the magazine vendor. I wasn’t worried about the possibility that the train might set off – I knew that the train would set off gently, and I’d have plenty of time to run and get onto it while it was still moving slowly enough to get on easily.

The train began to move as I was paying, and I was quite a long way behind my carriage – but I didn’t worry, I was nimble and knew how gently the train accelerated. I got my change and set off up the platform to catch up with my own carriage. I wanted to get into my own coach, because the corridor connection isn’t continuous – there’s no connection between the unreserved and reserved sections. I didn’t want to have to clamber around the outside of a moving train. I’d done it a few times, but it wasn’t my favourite activity by any means.

So there I was, running alongside the train, just getting to my own coach, when bang, one of those long two-wheeled baggage wagons swung sideways into me, bashing against me, just as I was right alongside the gap between two coaches. Over I went, down between the carriages, banging my head first on the buffers and then on the edge of the platform as I slipped between them. I felt my arm and maybe a rib or two break as the corner of the carriage banged into me. My leg buckled awkwardly under me. I thought I was a goner, but there was enough space between the rails and the platform, and I didn’t end up under the wheels. One of my plaits fell across the rail and was chopped short as a wheel rolled over it, but that was all.

I lay there hoping nothing sticking out of the underneath of the side of any of the carriages would hit me.

Then I heard a huge voice booming out, “Chain pull! Train rookhiye! Larki train ke niche gir gayi hai! Kooli! Dauro, dauro, chalati ko bolo gari rookhiye, larki gari ke niche hai!” – Pull the communication cord! Stop the train! There’s a girl fallen under the train! Coolie! Run, run, tell the driver to stop the train, there’s a girl under it!

There were lots of running footsteps. I don’t know whether it was the chain or the coolie that got through to the driver, but after what seemed an age the brakes came on with a great squealing, and the train stopped.

Right in front of me a wide pipe hung down just above the rail, dripping – the toilet outlet. On the sleeper, next to the rail and just in front of my face, I could see human shit. My head hurt – I hurt all over. I knew my left arm was broken, and probably my right leg and a rib or two. But I was alive and conscious, and the train had stopped.

A large Sikh gentleman in a respectable suit appeared just the other side of the rail from me. He’d evidently crawled under the carriage. “You’re alive! You speak English?”

“Ji han, aur Hindi.” Which means, “Yes (respectfully), and Hindi,” and our conversation continued in Hindi, but I’ll translate.

“Yes, and Hindi. I think I’ve got a broken leg and a broken arm though.”

“Don’t worry. I’m a doctor. We’ll get you out and get you to the hospital. Where’s your leg broken? Thigh or lower leg?”

“Lower leg.”

“Thank goodness for that. I’ll get some boys with a stretcher. Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He was as good as his word. The stretcher turned out to be a sheet of corrugated iron from a building site near the station, but better that than an hour’s wait for a proper stretcher from the hospital. They uncoupled the train just ahead of where I was lying, and pulled the rear half of the train back a few yards so they could get me out.

Doctor Singh even made sure someone found all my possessions off the train before he allowed the train to leave.

For some reason, an image of the shit right in front of my face stuck in my mind. It had been very dark green, almost black, with a network of stringy white slime all over it. I wondered if that was symptomatic of some particular disease, but didn’t have the courage to ask Dr Singh about it.

I was in Doctor Singh’s hospital for two weeks. Ben came out to India to make sure I was being properly looked after, and thinking possibly to arrange my repatriation; but Doctor Singh and I had already decided I’d be better off staying where I was. I was looked after very well indeed.

Hmm. Would taking me to Scotland be repatriation? I’m a British citizen, but I was born in India.

Ben came out again when I was discharged, bringing an electric wheelchair for me. Getting about on crutches had proved to be very difficult with one arm out of action. With an arm in plaster as well as a leg, I couldn’t have used an ordinary non-powered wheelchair. You do see one-armed people in wheelchairs in India, with a hand operated crank to drive themselves slowly along. It’s amazing how they manage. But their chairs are tailor made for them, because they need them for life. I only needed mine for a few weeks.

Ben accompanied me all the way to Evansganj. I couldn’t have got on and off the train on my own.

It was lovely to be in Evansganj, but of course frustrating to be stuck in a wheelchair and very dependent on help from the family. The footpaths, roads and pavements in Evansganj aren’t designed with wheelchair users in mind at all. Nevertheless, with a little help from various members of the family – Ravi, Kamal and Shanti’s children were mostly in their teens and very helpful – I got around the town.

This is maybe the point to digress a little to remark upon a recurring dilemma. Getting around town when I’m in Evansganj, which is normally easy enough, is partly a matter of revisiting old haunts, seeing how things have changed, and being nostalgic about how things used to be, or in some cases how they still are. It’s partly about meeting friends, now I’ve made friends in Evansganj again. But another part of it is shopping.

I buy most of my clothes in Evansganj nowadays. I’m only there once every couple of years or so, but that’s not a problem. I’m not one of those people who feel the need for a vast wardrobe with a complete clear out every few months. I don’t even use the whole of my luggage allowance on the plane, and I still scarcely buy any clothes apart from socks and underwear in Britain. Clothes, whether off the peg or made to fit, are much cheaper in Evansganj than anywhere in Britain, and I can get exactly what I want. Since I don’t generally want to wear little girl clothes, most of mine have to be made to fit. I may not turn up very frequently, but I’m a very good customer and the tailors know me well. I think we have a good relationship.

That’s all well and good, but of course everyone knows I’ve got Angrezi money, which in Indian terms means lots of money. Evansganj isn’t on the tourist trail at all, so the traders have never acquired the habit of ripping off tourists; that’s not the problem. Anyway, they know I’m no tyro. I get charged the same price as everyone else.

How much the tendency of traders on the tourist trail to rip off tourists is a matter of ordinary traders acquiring the habit, and how much it’s a matter of the tourist trail attracting the kind of traders who are that way inclined anyway, who knows? It could even be that they simply outcompete the more straightforward folks.

But back to my dilemma, which is this: how much should I spoil my cousins’ children? And now it’s beginning to be their grandchildren, too. They all know I’ve got lots of money, by their standards if not by British standards. If I don’t spoil them enough, I’m being mean; if I spoil them too much, well, they’ll be spoilt. I’m not sure there is a happy medium between these two errors, in fact I think they inevitably overlap. I’m a bit mean and I spoil them, too. Ho hum.

I don’t have this problem in Britain. I am by a significant margin the wealthiest in the family – for years, I had the best job in the family, and I’ve no dependants – but the difference isn’t more than is common in British families.

Shanti and Peter had just become grandparents for the first time. Their elder daughter Rosy had a little boy, Sunil. He slept very happily on my lap in the wheelchair, with a shawl tied around us both to make sure he didn’t fall off when I used my free hand to operate the joystick. Rosy scarcely let Sunil out of her sight, so he didn’t come with me on my expeditions, apart from one time I went shopping with Rosy.

Kamal came to Delhi with me. We stayed for a couple of days in Delhi, then he took me to the airport where the airport staff took charge of me. I’ve never got through an airport so smoothly in my life!

Back in Edinburgh, I was able to get about without anyone accompanying me. I could negotiate most places on my own, and could rely on finding someone to help me in the few situations where I couldn’t, such as getting on and off buses. But I was out of my plasters just a couple of weeks after getting back to Edinburgh anyway.

I was surprised at how unsteady I felt when the plasters first came off. The first time I went upstairs was actually quite unnerving – well, not so much the going up, as the coming down again. Fortunately, the handrail is on the right side coming downstairs, and it was my left arm that had been broken. I think I might have shuffled down the stairs on my bottom if it had been the other way round.

On the way back to Delhi going home, Kamal and I got into conversation with a new graduate, a food technologist from Bombay – a very interesting and bright young man. We talked about all sorts of things, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. I was right in my assessment of him as bright: he was already assistant Vice President of a major commodity exchange in India just six years later.

I honestly don’t remember exactly what we talked about on the train on that occasion, it’s all muddled up in my mind with things we’ve talked about since, or even conversations with other people. One particular conversation does stick in my mind though.

Sid (Siddharth) said, “An ordinary person like an autowallah, a dhobi or the like wears a wrist watch in Mumbai, whereas in Delhi I don’t see many wrist watches, not even on wealthy people. This cultural difference could be a reason for the difference in punctuality levels in the two cities.”

“That’s an interesting observation – but which culture do you prefer?”

“Most definitely Mumbai’s.”

“Interesting. In cities, I think I agree with you, but I very much like the lack of consciousness of time in the countryside.”

“I feel the same. In countryside I’m in the same ‘time zone’ as everyone else. It peeves me to find that nobody turns up until seven for a six thirty meeting in Delhi, while in Mumbai we can start by six forty-five. My impression is that in Delhi people take it as a measure of their own importance how late they can come and find others waiting for them.”

I laughed. “I like that. What’s more, despite not wearing a wrist watch, they must have a timepiece secreted about their person somewhere to calculate their lateness carefully.”

“I guess there are two considerations. One is the self-importance thing. Political leaders or film stars arriving hours late is not unusual. The other is the expectation that even if they arrive on time, the meeting won’t start on time, because everyone else will be late. As a result, hardly anyone is on time. If you tell someone ‘the meeting starts at six thirty’, they mentally translate it to seven o’clock. Sometimes they even think it aloud.”

Sid also has a blog, and one thing he wrote in it I’ve quoted in full, with his permission, in Appendix II, because it’s so precisely how I feel about the issue, and so very well put.

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