The Kerala Express

12/11/05 Kerala Express, 20 Hours south of Delhi.

Didn't sleep at all last night. A combination of the cold and a cramped bunk made for a long uncomfortable nine hours of shivering and aching. When I finally started to drift off everybody else woke up. A young boy in the bunk to my right had a shouting and crying fest while the other passengers took part in a noise-a-thon. Not sure how much money was raised but it sounded like a success.
It's now ten o'clock and about halfway through the journey, another twenty six hours to go. The sleeper carriage is of a similar layout to Chinese sleeper trains only stripped bare. The bunks are very crude and look like they have come straight from a prison surplus store. In fact the whole carriage looks like it was designed to transport societies trouble makers. There are bars on all the windows and the compartments are separated at the top by a metal grid. These compartments each contain eight very small, granite hard blue bunks. I am joined in my compartment by two Nuns who are currently eating Bombay mix and jam sandwiches, a very pretty young Indian lady who is playing Solitaire, a guy who is currently cocooned in a red and gold blanket (he is silent now but last night he snored like a fat horse) and a family of three who are travelling to Tamil Nadu to visit relatives. They are Ramesh, his wife Seema Ramesh and their daughter Anusha, they have treated me as a friend from the minute I boarded the train. Yesterday they shared with me their breakfast of Idlis (small South Indian rice cakes), their lunch of pilau rice and aloo ghobi and in the evening another mammoth helping of pilau rice and fruit. I have rather pathetically only bananas to offer them which doesn't quite compete with home cooked food. Their daughter Anusha came to sit on my bunk last night, we played thumb wars, paper scissors stone, listened to some music and rummaged through my toilet bag. I'd say she is about eight years old with big brown eyes, a short mop of curly black hair and very dark skin. When she smiles she reveals two missing front teeth, she is an unusual looking child. She has taking to calling me uncle which I like, "Uncle, uncle vud you like some rice". Last night whilst rummaging through my toilet bag explaining what the various products were for I sprayed some of my aftershave on her wrist. She reacted like I had just sprayed ammonia on her. I hope that this isn't how Indian women react to the smell, it cost me thirty pounds.
After accepting that I wasn't going to sleep I made my way to the bathroom to "freshen up". However, it's not easy to clean yourself in a three foot square box swaying like the deck of ship whilst standing in two centimetres of piss. Add to that cold water only and take away the luxury of a towel (I'd forgotten it) and you have one of life's more challenging grooming sessions. I battled away for about twenty minutes, repeatedly removing my toilet bag from the sink whilst trying to wash my arse without my shorts dropping off my knees into the pool of piss.After a tough fight it was on with some deodorant, a quick change of t-shirt and mission "clean up" was complete. The next issue was the toilet, I desperately needed a crap but the seat was too awful to place my freshly cleaned buttocks onto, there must have been urine samples from about forty different people. I tried hovering just above it but the motion of the train sent me crashing into the walls with my shorts once again threatening to fall down into the hell pool. With twenty four hours to go I know that I will have to face the seat of terror at some point. What I really need is another passenger in there with me to grip my shoulders and steady me while I hover, what a wonderful moment that would be. Who needs politics to bring nations together, I can hear the headlines now,

"Indian steadies English crapper"

Later that week

"Troubles in Kashmir come to an end after an outbreak of steadying".