Nice 'N' Sleazy

I'm woken with a start by the morning call to prayers from the mosque; it is 5am and still dark. Everytime the bus station announcer screams into the tannoy, the room lights flicker from the power overload. I call down for coffee, waking the sleeping houseboy. I pull myself together and put Trains At A Glance, my camera, and my notebook in my bag; I stop off at the restaurant and wolf down a spicy vegetable stuffed omelette and some more coffee, then take a cycle-rickshaw to Allahbad Junction. The booking centre is in a huge red building next to the main station, and I sit on the steps outside with a Wills Classic filling out a wad of reservation forms for all the possible connections to New Japaiguri - the railhead for the Darjeeling And Himalayan Railway. The booking hall is in turmoil: Allahbad's Sangam ( a sacred area alongside the Ganges ) is host to the Mela, and 100,000 pilgrims have arrived in the city on 450 special trains - half of them are trying to book their return tickets this morning. I notice one counter that has no queue, even though it's open for business; it is a dedicated credit card window, and as I approach, two Indians are turned away with their handfulls of Rupees. The train via Patna has a wait list of 403 people, the other route through Gaya 497. On the last possible train - The New Delhi-Guwahati North East Express - there is one second class two-tier berth left: I push my Visa card into the clerks hand and take my ticket. This is a Confirmed reservation - I definately have a place on the train; other possibilities are Reservation Against Cancellation and Wait Listed, which get you a seat or berth if one is available on the day, otherwise you travel in the crammed Unreserved coaches -which is something I fully intend to avoid at all costs.
I walk back to the station and watch a pair of WDMs waiting on platform 6 with a local passenger train I sit in the sun on a low railing with a mud cup of chai. I do not drink it. I have just watched it being brewed: milk poured into a filthy, dented metal pan, handfuls of tea-leaf dust and coarsely ground sugar tossed in afterward by the wallah’s dirty fingers, the whole lot warmed over a calor-gas ring. The lead one is orange and white, the paint faded and peeling, a garland draped around the headlight set high up in the front hood; the second one is red, white and blue, oil-stained and sooty. They are both lettered in Hindi, apart form their running numbers, their class – WDM 2a – and N.R. for Northern Railways. The elderly, bespectacled driver stands in the forward cab filling out his paperwork, more forms to add to the reams generated at every level of Indian railways, while his assistant climbs around the walkways outside the cab, cleaning the running lights with an oily rag. Without looking up from his reports, the driver leans forward and locks on the locomotive's air-horns. Startled by the blast, a goat trots off up the track in front of the engine, while a big green monkey jumps up onto the platform and struts past me with a sideways look. The assistant returns to the cab with a green flag and hangs it out of the door; the driver files his reports on a clipboard wedged into the driving stand, then pulls the power-handle back to notch 1. He sets about dusting-off the plastic armrest in his open window as the WDMs start to roll; he is casual and uninterested: he doesn’t bother to look ahead for obstructions on the line, or back down the train for to ensure all is in order. People surge past me to jump onto the moving train, and I notice a large brown rat scurrying along in the flow, somehow managing to avoid all the feet, even when it pauses to sniff something of interest. The driver pulls the power-handle even further back, still standing up in the cab, picking fluff from his jacket sleeve and the diesels slide the train out of the station and out of view in a cloud of black exhaust fumes. As I cross the footbridge over the station, I see a pall of smoke drifting over Allahbad: it’s not a fire, but the driver giving the WDMs full-throttle.
I go to The State Bank Of India to change a cheque. I am directed to the first floor Foreign Currency Cell, where I fill out two long and complex forms. I am called to the desk and wait while the Officer idly looks in his drawer, rearranges some papers, checks his PC screen and slowly drinks a cup of chai.
“Five minute wait”, he says to me, then strolls off without another word. He has done nothing about my transaction, not even looked at the forms. He is the worst sort of petty bureaucrat: he has the power to waste as much of my time as he wants, and make things as difficult as he wishes. And he knows it. I study the office: a concrete box with pale green walls and tattered orange curtains fluttering at the barred windows; grey metal desks with old PCs, brand new flat-screen monitors, their shipping boxes dumped in a corner. I hate the place.
After fifteen minutes I walk over to the Cell Supervisors desk and demand some action is taken. He takes over my case for a while, until the Bureaucrat returns and sits down to begin a conversation with his colleagues.
“Are you dealing with my case?” I ask him sharply, my patience exhausted.
“I am dealing with it”, he replies without conviction.
“Then do so. Now. Do you understand?”. This makes him jump.
Eventually I am issued with a form to take to the Chief Cashier at the end of the linoleum floored corridor - which he rejects immediately. I go back to the Cell and make the Bureaucrat correct his error. I walk back to the Cashier who then demands a token. The Cell issues me with the brass token number 6, which I throw at the Cashier. He reluctantly counts out my cash – all 50 Dollars of it. It has taken an hour.
I walk back to Civil Lines – the residential area of Raj administered Allahbad. I drink a milky coffee at the Aao Ji Dhaba, sitting in a brown plastic garden chair at a table facing the street. It is a local café in a cavernous, dark, open fronted room at the back of the old Palace Theatre. There are yellow serviettes and plastic flowers in little pots on the table, big cauldrons of curries and masalas simmering over gas-rings in the kitchen area at the back. A vegetable Thali is 35 Rupees, an Aloo Ghobi just 30, topped up constantly until you have eaten enough. An Indian boy balances on a rickety wooden stepladder and hangs strings of chillis and limes from the ceiling rafters. Everywhere I go I attract attention: four gentle-eyed pilgrims in orange robes and yellow headscarves squat on the street infront of my table, quietly watching me; the street traders outside and the other customers inside the Dhaba look away quickly whenever I glance up from my notebook. When I used the toilet at Allahbad Junction station this morning, a group of Indians gathered around the urinal to watch - commenting, correcting, agreeing with each other. There was no point in being embarrassed.
I walk to the Khana Shayam hotel and drink a beer in the 8th floor bar. On the way I pass another adaptation of the bicycle: a wallah, perfectly poised in the saddle, holds a knife to a spinning grinding wheel as he pedals; the chain has been disconnected from the rear wheel and attached to a sprocket driving the abrasive wheel. The doorman at the hotel is a tall Sikh with a bright red turban and a ceremonial dagger tucked into an orange sash; the waiters wear white dinner jackets, black bow-ties and yellow silk cummerbunds as they pour my drink. As the glass starts to become empty, a waiter will appear and quietly top it up for me. It is very nice, and the view of the sunset over Allahbad spectacular. A well dressed young English couple enters the bar. She is bossy and demanding, he silent and downtrodden. She complains in a loud plumy voice about the wine. Why haven’t you got red? Why is the white not chilled? How much is the champagne? What juices do you have? Which restaurant is the best in the hotel? On and on, constantly picking-up the helpful staff on their English, repeating back to them anything they say, poking at them with rhetorical, impatient questions. Her glum partner listens to her humiliate the waiters and doesn’t say a word. I hate these privileged people who come to India expecting a well stocked wine cellar waiting to be served at their preferred temperature; if you can’t make allowances for the difficult local conditions, then don’t come.
On the way back to the Tourist Bungalow I stop at a roadside bar counter called The Cold Beer Shop. It is a shack set-up on the mud alongside the street, and has a rope cordon around the litter strewn patch at the front. It is stocked with strong beer and bottles of Silky Stallion and White Mischief vodka. The owner takes a dusty bottle of Kingfisher from an old chest-freezer filled with ice, flips the cap out into the street and hands it to me; there is no nowhere to sit - I drink my beer standing up at the counter. Indian men scream up on scooters and Enfield Bullets and quickly drink the 100ml bottles of spirit standing at the counter before tearing off again. A couple of desperately alcoholic Indians stumble around, begging customers for drinks; one leans across the counter and wraps his trembling fingers around my Kingfisher bottle. I snatch it away, his watering eyes locked onto it. It reminds me of the booths I visited in Central Europe, the sordid drinking enclaves so popular with the less fortunate in life. Yet a booth in Allahbad? Dark hotel bars, yes: but a booth?
I take a cycle-rickshaw back to my room. The wallah has rigged up a line of bicycle bells on the front forks which ring whenever he pulls on a lever; a piece of string lifts a row of nails that bounce off the spinning spokes and strike the bells. It is very clever.
I order a room-service Aloo Dum and Naan, some mineral water, and wait for the call to evening prayers.