Mysore Junction

I go down to the empty courtyard restaurant at seven o'clock in the morning and surprise the waiter who is dozing in a chair outside the kitchen door. I forgo the complimentary South Indian breakfast of idli or dosai with sambar in favour of a steaming glass of black coffee and pick at the Vijay Times. Today the lead story is Bangalore's stray dog menace: yesterday, for the second time in a month, a child was mauled to death by one of the packs of wild dogs that roam the city streets. Officials blame the illegal mutton and chicken stalls that dump their waste on the streets for the dogs to feed on, making them bloodthirsty and aggressive, while the residents cite casual disregard for the entire problem by the governing council as the underlying cause. I signal the waiter for more coffee and consult Mysore And Around. The 08.30 Passenger's second stop on the line back to Bangalore is Srirangapattna, a ruined, walled temple complex on an island in the River Cauvery, site of the 1799 Battle Of Mysore against the British colonial forces. I finish my coffee, gather my notebook, camera and daypack and walk down Jansi Lakshmibai Road towards Mysore Junction station. I wait at the traffic lights to cross the intersection with Dhanavanthri Road; as in Debrecen in Hungary, there is a countdown display above the lights to tell motorists how long they will have to wait for a green light. The stopped traffic in front of me waits until there is fifteen seconds left and, ignoring the still red light, pulls off into the oncoming traffic with a screech of tyres and a cacophony of blaring horns. The junction grinds to a halt, a confusion of cars, scooters and rickshaws fighting for a passage through the gridlock. I use the distraction to weave through the traffic to the safety of the far pavement and continue towards the station. I buy a 10 Rupee Second Class Unreserved ticket to Srirangapattna and back from the General Ticket window and then stand beneath the station's elegant clock tower and smoke a Wills Classic. It is a building of shuttered windows and wide verandas and stands at the end of a broad, tree lined avenue - a classic post-colonial Indian railway station. I buy a small glass of milky coffee on platform 1 and watch an old WDS shunting a pair of windowless red coaches around the carriage sidings; part of the Accident Relief Train to provide emergency medical facilities for crashes and derailments, or as the Vijay Times describes such incidents, mishaps.
Mysore Junction is ostensibly the convergence of three routes: The line South to Chamarajanagar; the Northern division to Hassan and Mangalore; and the mainline that follows a Northeastern course to Bangalore for connections to Chennai and the rest of the Indian Railways network. But the only trains running are on the Bangalore section: the Chamarajanagar line is undergoing conversion from metre to broad gauge, and as it is only a branch line terminating at a small unknown town, progress is painfully slow; the major route to Hassan and Mangalore has already been converted but has yet to open. The reason for this can be seen in the sidings at the North end of Mysore Junction: lines of YDM diesels and rakes of coaches stranded on the few hundred feet of metere gauge track left in the yard. They are perfectly serviceable, but completely useless; they are landlocked, stranded and surrounded by lines they can't run on. And even though table 20 in Trains At A Glance shows train 6517 the Yesvantpur-Mangalore Express departing Mysore at 22.35 daily for Hassan and the coast, an addendum states Date of introduction to be notified later. South Western Railways simply do not have the stock to operate the service, even though the track is ready. Imagine converting your domestic electricity supply from 110v to 240v but neglecting to budget for new appliances: brand new wiring, perfectly good washing machine and DVD player, but they won't work together and you have no money left for new ones. New broad gauge track, plenty of metre gauge YDM diesels that can't use it and no money for replacement WDMs or WDP-4s.
The station clock is showing 8.10 and the heat of the day is slowly starting to build. A blue WDM-2 draws a long line of coaches out of the sidings behind me and then propels them into platform two for the morning Passenger train; a roundel on its nose reads "Diesel Shed - Krishnarajapurnam" - Bangalore's main locomotive shed, which would be very unhappy if Mysore sent one of its engines off to Mangalore and the Konkan Railway on the new broad gauge line. I leave my bottle of water on a hard wooden seat next to a barred open window in the leading Luggage-Cum-Second Class carriage, stand on the platform in the hot sunshine and watch the driver walk round the WDM, opening engine covers, checking brake blocks and wiping pulped flies from the cab windows. I walk over to him and ask what he thinks of the WDMs. He is surprised by my knowledge of railways and amazed when I ask whether he prefers the ALCO or General Motors engined locomotives. He likes them both, but the visibility from a WDP-4 is a lot better than a WDM. He shows me around the cab and is pleased when I remark how clean it is inside; it's as well looked after as MAV Techniks Hungarian M61 or any goggle-eyed 754 in the Czech Republic. We chat a little more down on the platform until he looks at his watch and excuses himself. Back in the cab, he completes the last of his paperwork and then hits the air horns for departure. I climb back into my coach just as the train begins to edge along the platform and sit in the open doorway with my feet on the outside step - foot board riding, one of Indian Railways great pleasures. Some caution is required when deciding where and when to board ride: firstly, it is not generally accepted in FC (first class), CC (chair car) or 2AC and 3AC ( two and three tier air-conditioned sleeping cars) where signs above the doors discourage the practice and coach attendants actively prohibit it; and secondly, the cleanliness of the SC (sleeper class) or Unreserved coach in which it seems to be a perfectly acceptable way to travel. Unreserved and Sleeper class are usually chronically overcrowded, and on long journeys become filthy with discarded food, spit and overflowing toilets; the open doorways are used as an alternative convenience, which is blown back onto the doorhandles, threshold and the inside of the door itself. The Mysore-Bangalore Passenger is fresh from the carriage sidings where it has been cleaned since the previous days return journey, so my doorstep is free of the pervasive smell and crusted remains of human waste. The WDM-2 draws the train past the lines of redundant YDMs and metre gauge coaches, crosses the point work where the unused Hassan-Mangalore section waits for a train and accelerates past the goods yard and a cluster of brightly painted Tata trucks waiting to unload a rake of goods wagons that has just arrived behind a pair of orange WDGs. We pause briefly at a small halt a few kilometres out of Mysore where one or two passenger alight and then the WDM starts to pick up speed along the single track line. From my seat in the doorway, the noise and fumes are overwhelming; we rattle over level crossings where the barriers are so close I could touch them and fly over river bridges that have no parapets or railings so that I am looking straight down at the water 40 feet below. The paddy fields are bright green in the morning sun, the sky a cloudless powder blue; the breeze cools me as I lean forward and watch the exhaust billowing from the WDM as the driver piles on the power to climb a gradient - it is unlike any railway trip I have taken in any other country, almost perfection.
We cross a long bridge across the Cauvery and slow for the river island station at Srirangapattna; I leave the train, walk up to the pedestrian crossing and watch as it pulls out and crosses the bridge on the far side of the island. As the engine's air horns fade into the distance, the signal at the South end of the curving platform flashes to green; within minutes an express headed by two WDMs rumbles through the station in the opposite direction with a non-stop express from Bangalore, having waited for my train to clear the passing loop somewhere out of sight on the mainland.
Srirangapattna station is a sleepy country halt with one ticket window and a small chai stall and waiting room; an abandoned signal cabin sits at the South end of the only platform, almost hidden under a vast banyan tree. The steel bridge that brought the Bangalore Passenger onto the island, and the one to the North that took it back to shore are paralleled by the stone viaducts of the old metre gauge line, lifted long ago, and are used by the locals on foot and on bicycles to cross the river. I pick my way along the steep path that leads down to the river and follow a narrow track beneath the crumbling walls of the ruined temple fort. It is hot, still and quiet; I see a woman washing clothing and spreading it to dry on the huge rocks that rise from the riverbed, but otherwise the is nobody in sight. The wide, shallow river stretches as far as the eye can see before disappearing into the blue-green haze of the distant jungle. I walk to the tip of the island and back along the North bank; I have barely covered half the distance before my two litre bottle of water is finished. I pass the Sriranganatha temple - slowly decaying behind a veil of creepers and a barbed wire fence - and walk through the dusty little town. The term backwater could have been invented for Srirangapattna: not much happens here, and what little does, happens at a very unhurried pace. There is a "Meals Ready" hall on the main street, a small Yatri hostel and a few General Sales stalls; there is no Cold Beer Parlour or hotel bar, and no restaurant or Souvenir-Cum-Bookshop. I sit on a bench under the shade of the station canopy and wait for the train back to Mysore; after forty minutes I walk back to the ticket counter and ask when the 11.30 Passenger will arrive, as it's already twenty minutes late. I am told it is running 2 hours behind schedule. I sit on my bench and decide to wait for the Chennai-Mysore Shatabdi Express: with any luck it will get held at the South signal to let a Bangalore train enter the passing loop between here and Mysore. Three RPF officers laze on one of the benches outside the waiting room; they have no AK-47s, no Lachti sticks and two of them are wearing flip-flops with their khaki uniforms. The oldest and most senior one rises slowly from the bench, stretches, yawns, climbs down from the platform and crosses the track to a small yellow washed building with a sign outside reading Railway Traffic Training Compound. He lets himself through a gate in the picket fence and checks if the laundry he has hung from the students' demonstration Speed Restriction and Shunt Limit signs is dry. Satisfied, he ambles back to the platform edge and summons his juniors to gather his washing and fold it into the two bags he gives each of them.
A long blast of an air horn splits the silent early afternoon, and I look down the platform to the signal at the edge of the bridge: Red - for the moment, at least. The Shatabdi comes into the station at speed, the driver only braking when he spots the signal, which is still at red. I climb the steps into the Sleeper Class coach while it is still moving, just as the signal flicks to green and the driver powers-up the WDM and takes off again: split second timing - the train didn't actually stop.
I spend the rest of the afternoon fighting with a computer at Cyber Zone and walk away feeling defeated and frustrated. I sit on the rooftop terrace at Shipashri Bar And Restaurant with a cold Kingfisher and watch the light and heat fade from the sky. A very large Indo-Chinese couple arrive and sit at the table facing mine; they wear identical pudgy frowns and stare at their menus silently. They reel off a long order to the waiter and then wait wordlessly for their meal to arrive, ignoring each other completely. The waiter appears with a chicken sizzler and chips; their eyes light up and suddenly they're both smiling and chatting now that they can share their one common interest - food. An enormous bowl of fried rice arrives, and then another one; two curries and more chips; bottles of ketchup and Kinleys Soda which they shovel spoonfulls of sugar into. They are gluttons; they have barely swallowed one mouthful before the next load is hovering before their fat lips. They belch as loudly as the egg-sucking man in the Kwality Bar And Restaurant, hiccup and slow their pace; but they don't give up. They finish every last grain of rice and clean every shred of meat from the chicken bones. The man reaches under his bulging stomach and loosens the button of his trousers while the woman slumps back in her chair and cradles her belly. They revert to morbid silence until they spot the waiter crossing the terrace with their desserts. It is a disgusting spectacle, and one I refuse to continue witnessing; I leave a 100 Rupee note under my half-finished bottle of Kingfisher, walk down to the street and go back to the Mayura Hoysala.
I sit on the veranda with a Kingfisher and idly glance at the room service menu: at this rate, I will be on hunger strike in roughly eight days time.
I'm still sitting outside in the warm night air when I hear the air horns of a WDM announcing the departure of the 23.30 Mysore-Bangalore Passenger. That is my indulgence - helped along with a little Kingfisher: is that so bad?