Blog 5: A Passage to India

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I am in Assam, India. To get here I flew from London to Kolkata, then boarded the Kamrup Express train bound for Dibrugarh. I headed for a small town called North Lakhimpur, where I arrived 26 hours (and 40 stations) later. This last leg was completely unnecessary- a 2-hour budget airline flight would have got me here directly. But where’s the fun (or interesting blog post) in that?

Few places can claim to assault the senses with such wholesale violence as an Indian city. In fact, the experience is so total that you develop a 6th sense – you feel this place beyond your ears, eyes, nose, mouth and fingertips; it reaches a chemical element too. These places seem to carry you away in a big sweeping river. To swim against the current is futile, it is best to just let it happen to you: at worst you drift downstream and stretch for the sides, clambering out when your limbs feel numb and you can no longer breathe.

I arrived in the early morning at Kolkata airport. I had no plans and no fixed agenda for the day besides catching my train that evening. My first obstacle was getting into town: this was solved by a glorious, clapped-out Hindustan Ambassador taxi. These large yellow beasts are iconic in Kolkata. Today they face extinction in the face of sleeker rideshares like Uber and newer, more environmentally friendly taxis, but for decades they have ruled these roads. Jamming my rusted passenger door shut felt like walking through a wardrobe into an old, forgotten land.

I reached behind me for my seatbelt- there was none. Rishi Sunak, I know how you feel. I looked over the driver’s shoulder at the instrument panel. The tachometer and engine temperature gauge didn’t work- who uses those anyway? The speedometer wasn’t much help either- regardless of our speed, it bounced metronomically between 20 and 40, occasionally rising to 50 if we hit an especially large bump. The fuel gauge did work, but it was hovering rather mutinously near a faded letter “E”. The odometer had climbed to a triumphant 492,160 where it now resolutely stayed as we wove in and out of buses, rickshaws, cows and handcarts on our way into the centre of town.

There is a careful kind of chaos on India’s roads. Vehicles hammer their horns constantly: this is not out of frustration or impatience but in friendly warning- you are usually far too busy dodging the zoological display in front of you to have time to look to your sides or rear, and so rely on the proximity of other drivers' horns to gauge your chances in a blind overtake. Different vehicles can be distinguished by their horns: tuk tuks have a duck-like nasal ‘honk’, and large trucks have melodious tunes somewhere between a regiment’s bugle and a cellphone ringtone. Oddly, my taxi driver did not touch his at all – I can only assume it was broken, or else in his years of experience he had risen to a Nostradamus-level of zen at which point he no longer had need for one.

At large intersections, traffic cops in white uniforms flicked their gloved hands to halt or summon lines of cars. They were roundly (though not quite entirely) ignored, but this did not seem to bother them much. I experienced their work as a pedestrian- I arrived at a street crossing and looked for guidance on when to step out: I was given a simultaneous nod, shrug and shake of the head, like someone trying to pull on a T-shirt that was two sizes too small. I soon realised that you simply begin walking, maintaining a constant speed, and the waves part before you until you arrive at the other side.

The Kamrup Express left from Howrah Junction, a bubbling pot of liquid people flowing in from every direction onto the regular local and regional trains. Its understated selling point is the single largest ceiling fan I have ever seen- those blades could rival an offshore wind turbine.

I pushed my way down the platform to my birth in sleeper class, past boxes of fresh fish, bales of fabric and sacks of fertiliser all being loaded into the train.

We left at 6:30pm on the dot. Almost immediately, we were inundated with people walking up and down the train, selling anything you could ever need for your journey. From my seat I could only see a few meters up either end of the carriage, so people would flash past in a blur of colour and sound before disappearing off at the next stop.

I started making a list of what went past:

• Bottled water ("2 litre pani, 2 litre pani")

• Headphones

• Pillows and blankets

• Disposable razors, combs

• A screwdriver set

• Watches, wallets and sandals

• Bundles of fake flowers

• Children's alphabet books

The streetfood and snacks alone were incredible. The train stopped for a few minutes at each large station so you had time to hop off and buy something on the platform.

The kilometers rolled by into the night. Morning brought views of paddy fields and mustard seed in Van Gogh yellow, giving way to the neat trimmed rows of tea bushes as we headed north through Assam in the afternoon. In all I covered over 1,200kms, or roughly the length of the UK, if a crow has the day off and rides their bike.

I arrived in the dark- tired and a little dazed, still processing the sights, sounds and smells of the past day and a bit. In reality, this was just the end of my passage to India, but I felt as though I'd been here a week already.