Near-Death and Other Travel Experiences The Dolally Tap 2016 Part B- Eleven kinds of First Class…and just one Second
What has happened?
I travel from Mumbai to Deolali Military Transit camp to see the place that gave the world the term Dolally Tap, and to perform a Dolally Tap Dance on the station platform without being shot by nervous soldiers with mounted machine guns
What happened next?
I walked up through parts of the old military camp to a disused Hindu Temple near the gates of the new camp and spent some time looking around although it was very overgrown and you have to be careful of wading through long grass in such places.
I then hailed down a motorbike rickshaw and headed for a place Called Nashik Road Junction where I would be able to get a good meal. The place was dark, apart from a range of pit fires where men were cooking over the flames. My Rheumatologist and I compare travel notes when I go for my appointments. A few weeks later he told me that he had also come back from India where he has stayed in a five-star hotel but the trip had been ruined by the most dreadful food poison. He had made the mistake of eating salads and fresh fruit. I told him next time eat only fried food as that process kills every last germ.
The meal was the best Indian food I have ever had…it made anything I had in England taste bland. I spent the rest of the afternoon just walking around what was something like a small town looking at things. I probably dozed for a while on a bench. That is usual. Small towns are just the right size when you want to learn as much about life in a country when you only have a few hours.
Around four I went to catch a train but found that my travel pass was not valid for this time of day on that route. My only option was to go second class which is the carriage at the back of the train without seats. As I have said Indian trains have a full eleven kinds of First Class but only one kind of Second Class and it's like stepping into another world. We were packed in shoulder to shoulder, face to face. My day pack was resented as that was space for half a body.
Small children were sleeping in the luggage racks above our heads. Despite the crowding men were squatting and brewing cha on primus stoves. The spicy tea was then passed from hand to hand and the money came back the same way. Young men fixed themselves in the open doorways by spreading their limbs four ways and wedging themselves in the frame. One posed a little when I took his photo. In between his legs and arms, I could see a little of the landscape hilly, arid and rutted by soil erosion. A few low thorn bushes. No trees. The soil was red (I have a thing about red soil). I have a video somewhere of that view through the young man's legs and arms.
A young girl of about fourteen had got on the carriage. She was dressed in gaudy clothes and had hand tiny cymbals attached to each of her fingers. She sang in a scratchy voice accompanying herself with the tinkling of the finger cymbals. She is singing in the background as I catch about a minutes worth of the landscape. She got off at the next station. Later older women got, similarly dressed. They went down the carriage and men whistle and called out remarks and laughed. They were prostitutes. It was unimaginable how they might do business.
At every station, more people got on. I hated every one of them. We were packed solid now. I put my hands upon my head as I could not bear the feeling of having them pinned at my side. Inch by inch there was a movement going on as the newcomers pushed to get space. In an irresistible way, I was being pushed toward a squalid little room with no door which was the toilet. It was bare of anything other than a floor which sloped toward a hole in the centre. I spent more than half the journey hanging tightly onto the door frame whilst a steady stream of men used the facility. The conditions were dreadful. It was a six-hour journey back into Mumbai in the most acute discomfort. Long delays at stations. Lots of shoving. Most people ignored this foreign idiot. A couple of younger men made conversation. Always on the same line. “What is it like in England?”.
My lasting impression of India is lots and lots of people in small spaces and a feeling of chaos. The train journey was a nightmare experience but others were not. Forget the idea of personal space though.
Tomorrow. Looking for Butch Cassidy in Patagonia
Photos- all pics mine