Inspired by an article she read about how India's domestic airlines now reach 80 cities Monisha Rajesh, a Telugu who has connections in Chennai and Hyderabad but only barely since she and her family lived and grew up in the UK, decided to gingerly test the Indian experience with - around India in 80 days.Also semi inspired by the Jules Verne classic of Around the World in 80 days she found her own Passepartout and they set out on their three or four month adventure of travelling in Indian trains to the farthest tip on four corners of the country and traversing the 64000 kms network that carries around 20 million people a day!
To start with Monisha dropped in at the UK representative of Indian Rail who gave her a nice break up of trains to travel by - scenic routes, toy trains, luxury trains, Rajdhanis, Shatabdis and some Indrail passes which are available only for phirangs I think. The duo land in Chennai which is home, get their tickets organised by some jugaad, and take the Chennai Kanyakumari express. For some reason Monisha is also obsessed with Chetan Bhagath and ends up reading all his books on these journeys.
Anyway here's how she went about - Chennai-Kanyakumari-Kerala-Goa. Anyway on to Goa and a stay in Candolim where she mentions the River Princess, a ship that ran aground and stayed there till recently, then the Konkan Railway to Mumbai through 92 tunnels. Then they caught a train called the Indian Maharaja which is a luxury train and went to Delhi.
From Mumbai another luxury train 'The Deccan Odyssey' which took them to Ellora, Udaipur, Ranthambore and to Delhi. Another IndRail pass and they head right back to - Kottayam in Kerala and enjoy a stay in the backwaters of Kumarakom, hopped across to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu for their temple trip - Madurai, Thanjavur, Srirangam, Nagpattanam and so on. While in Madurai she stayed at Hotel Chetnoor which was right behind the hotel we stayed in (Royal Court) and we actually had stopped at Chetnoor's bar for a drink - she mentions the hotel and the bar in not so complimentary terms. It was surreal - me in Madurai reading about the same place written by an author ten years ago. Oh, while in the bar they have an argument over Sathya Sai Baba which freezes their relationship a bit. Then to Chennai.
From Chennai to Hyderabad and to Mumbai where they experienced the local trains first hand, then to Pune where they enrolled into the Osho experience which she did not seem to subscribe to much, to Jhansi, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Dwarka, Diu. And then to Jaisalmer, Kalka on way to Shimla at some point when Passepartout and she have a fall out. She decides to flip between calling it off when she meets known faces and heads on to Amritsar, drops into Kapil Dev's home at Delhi over the wall, back to Chennai, hops on to the Golden Chariot from Mysore which takes her to Hasan, Hampi, Gadag, Goa and back to Bangalore.
From there to the Lifeline Express which offers medical help to remote areas hrough trains, Allahabad,Jammu, Udhanpur, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Tinsukhia, Ledo the farthest station in the East, toy train from Darjeeling, Kolkata, Puri (where she is sent out of the temple for lack of proof of being a Hindu). Cleanses it all up with a 10 day Vippasana course in Hyderabad and then to Chennai and back home.
Monisha wrote very well - witty, packed with the right amount of research, crisp, empathetic, honest - you cannot ask for more. Through all this she keeps her view very honest, meets people easily and except for one time when she runs away from a hotel in some godforsaken place late at night, generally has good experiences with strangers offering help, food, connections, a shoulder, information. From her writing it appears she was open and soaked in the Indian train experience, the many different cultures and people and food that India offers and revelled in it. Makes you want to take train journeys too! Excellent work Monisha somehow I identified with her in so many ways - her Telugu and Hyderabad connection, the Vipassana in Hyderabad, many of the places she visited, her sense of humour. And to think I bought this book in Madurai where she stayed in a hotel right behind mine and then wrote a book that made it to the bookstore there!
I'd read her to Naipaul any day.
1 comment:
Sounds good.. will read it some day.
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