In Karnataka

I wake just after seven o'clock to the sound of the kites' high pitched call from the trees outside my veranda, step into the bathroom and open the shutters. It is far hotter and more humid than the fan cooled bedroom even at this hour, bright sunlight streaming through the window and warming the floor tiles. I bucket shower, shave and then walk down to the courtyard restaurant for coffee, picking up my copy of The Vijay Times from the doormat outside my room on the way. I am the only westerner in the hotel; the other guests are holidaying Indian families and a couple of business men in smart casual clothes carrying mobile phones. At one of the tables a small group of pilgrims from the Yatri Niwas ( pilgrim hostel ) next door to the Mayura Hoysala are quietly eating a traditional breakfast of dosai and iddli before setting off to visit the temples within the walls of the Maharajha's Palace. I order a black coffee and it arrives a few minutes later in a tall glass that is so hot I have to wrap a napkin around it to lift it. The headline of The Vijay Times jumps off the page: "66 Killed as blasts strike Indo-Pak friendship train". Just before midnight, while I was sleeping in my comfortable bed under the cooling breeze from the ceiling fan, low powered explosives surrounded by cans of petrol were detonated in two coaches of the Samjhauta Express - know as the Friendship Train - as it travelled between New Delhi and Lahore in Pakistan. Rather than blow the coaches apart, the devices were designed to cause a huge fire; unaware of the two burning carriages, the driver continued at 110kmh until alerted by a pointsman at a level crossing, and the train finally came to a stop outside the village of Shiva some two and a half kilometres later. By that time more than 60 passengers had been burned to death and 50 more seriously injured. There is no entry for the Samjhauta Express in Trains At A Glance, even though it made it's inaugural bi-weekly run in 1976: it is a Special Express, unadvertised, each run essentially a one-off - such is the nature of the political relationship between India and Pakistan.
I walk down Dhanavatri Road towards Devaraja Market and find a department store called Fab City tucked down a side street just off the main road. It looks as if it has been plucked from the centre of Luton or Carlisle and slotted neatly between the "Meals Ready" halls and tailoring shops that line Narayana Shastri Road; the steel and glass three story facade towering incongruously above the dusty street where chai wallahs vie for trade and goats and cows mooch around in piles of litter and coconut husks. I leave my bag at the security desk outside in exchange for a small brass token stamped Number 14 and walk through the sliding doors into bright fluorescent lighting and deeply chilled air. Fab City sells everything from toothpaste to televisions, trainers to tomato ketchup. There is at least one member of staff in a bright red Fab City polo shirt in each aisle on all three floors, and several more milling around each department - all doing very little other than following a small handful of customers around the store. Along with the guard on the desk outside and the one on the front door, more security is posted at intervals up and down the central spiral staircase and outside the lifts, and two mobile patrols circle wherever a shopper pauses long enough to browse the items on a shelf. It is a very uncomfortable experience, one that makes you think twice about daring to touch, let alone pick up any of their obviously precious stock. With sweating palms and a no doubt guilty look, I select a notebook from the stationary department, hurry downstairs and find some shampoo to furtively take to the computerised checkout. An vaguely suspicious assistant packs my shopping into a bag, seals it with a plastic tie, stamps my receipt "Paid" and tells me I am free to leave the store. After showing the sealed bag and the irrefutable proof of the receipt to both the doorman and the guard at the security desk where I left my bag, I walk into the hot, noisy, dusty and undoubting atmosphere of the real Mysore.
I walk along Sayaji Roa Road and turn into a narrow passage that leads into Devaraja Market, a warren of covered stalls piled with spices, incense, pyramids of the spectacularly coloured powder used to celebrate Holi, mountains of bananas and vegetables of every imaginable variety. The sun beats down on the narrow paths between the stalls and the mass of people who wind their way through the maze. The scent of corriander and sandalwood mixes with the coppery smell of blood from the plucked chickens and mutton carcasses that hang upside down in a cloud of flies outside the slaughterhouse. The sheer variety and quantity of produce is incredible; from the familiar to the unidentifiable, it is all carried into the market on the heads of a swarm of coolis, bent double under the weight of their loads. I walk through another passage entrance at the south of the market and find the Paras Bhavan "Meals Ready" hall. I order a fresh lime soda - it is a pure vegetarian establishment and therefore serves no alcohol, not even Kingfisher - and an Aloo Puri Masala, both of which are extremely good and are embarrassingly inexpensive.
I spend a frustrating couple of hours at the Cyber Zone internet cafe, which is tucked into the attic of a "Gifts Emporium" near Fab City and boasts four elderly PCs, none of which has a CD-ROM, USB port or adequate processing speed. I give up trying to work after the second power cut leaves the room in hot darkness for twenty minutes, walk back along Dhanavantri Road and find the partially hidden entrance to Mysore Railway Museum on the far side of the station. India's National Railway Museum opened in Delhi in 1977 and was followed by the announcement to establish regional museums in Chennai, Pune and Mysore, the latter of which opened in 1979 and remains the only fulfilment of the plan. The museum comprises of a small selection of rusting and dilapidated metre and narrow gauge steam engines, a few wagons and rotting wooden coaches and a small building housing two carriages of the maharajah's private train, all laid out in an overgrown garden. The history of Indian Railways and the opportunity to describe and showcase it's achievements have been squandered at the Mysore Railway Museum; the exhibits stand in dereliction exactly where they were dumped 28 years ago, and nothing new has joined them since; there is no information to help interpret what is being seen - not even a guide book is published - no literature at the empty souvenir stand ; there is nowhere to buy refreshments and no knowledgeable curator to answer your questions. I am the only visitor, and the museum grounds have the stillness and silence associated with long standing abandonment or evacuation.
I quietly leave and walk down Vinoba Road and find an anonymous bar that has nothing more than a McDowells Whisky poster above the door to advertise its business. I order a Kingfisher, carry it into the back room and sit at one of the dirty Formica topped tables. It is a typical local Indian bar: dingy paintwork, litter strewn floor, a television blaring a Bollywood soundtrack and groups of men drinking too much super strong beer and White Mischief vodka. The napkins in the chipped and yellowing plastic holder are squares of torn newspaper. The Indian man opposite me pushes away two empty quarter bottles of McDowells No1 whiskey and orders another, along with a Haywards 9000 beer and a snack. He is overweight, sweating and has thick, coiffed hair and a stomach that strains at the buttons of his red nylon shirt. He pours half of the fresh bottle into his glass, tops it up with a small amount of water from a plastic jug on the table and drinks it straight back in one go. He scoops up a handful of masala peanuts from the bowl in front of him and washes them down with a gulp of the super strong beer. As he pours the last few drops of whiskey into his glass and dilutes it with some Haywards 9000, the barman pushes a plate of fried eggs across the table to him. He lights a Navy Cut cigarette, balances it in the ashtray, lifts the plate to his mouth, places his thick, moist lips over an egg and with a slurp sucks the yolk out of its nesting place in the milky, undercooked albumen. He rinses his mouth with whisky and beer, sucks out the second yolk, wipes a slick of sweat from his forehead and belches loudly. He fits the Navy Cut into the corner of his mouth and pushes pieces of egg white past the filter with his fingers while he smokes. He wipes his greasy fingers on his huge, flared denim jeans, stubs his cigarette and lowers his head to the plate to hoover up the remaining lumps of runny egg before washing it down with the last of the McDowells and Haywards.
I walk back to the Mayura Hoysala in the warmth of the gathering dusk and sit in the courtyard restaurant with a Kingfisher. I look at the menu, immediately see "Eggs To Order" and push it as far away across the table as I can. I take my drink upstairs and sit on the veranda with Trains At A Glance and a booklet entitled Mysore And Around. Much like The Samjhauta Express, there is no mention in Trains of any local Passenger services from Mysore; but my locally published booklet shows an Unreserved Ordinary train leaving at 8.30 in the morning which will call at Srirangatpattna. I order another Kingfisher from room service, shower, put a few things in my bag for the morning and lie on top of the bed under the slowly rotating ceiling fan, ignoring any thoughts of food.