The Great Railway Bazaar

Chapter Thirteen

I had two ambitions in India: one was to find a train to Ceylon, the other was to have a sleeping car to myself. At Egmore Station in Madras both ambitions were fulfilled. My little cardboard ticket read Madras-Colombo Fort, and when the train pulled out the conductor told me I would be the only passenger in the car for the twenty-two-hour journey to Rameswaram. If I wished, he said, I could move to the second compartment – the fans worked there. It was a local train, and, since no one was going very far, everyone chose third class. Very few people went to Rameswaram, he said, and these days nobody wanted to go to Ceylon: it was a troublesome country, there was no food in the markets, and the prime minister, Mrs Bandaranaike, didn't like Indians. He wondered why I was going there.

'For the ride,' I said.

'It is the slowest train.' He showed me the timetable. I borrowed it and took it into my compartment to study. I had been on slow trains before, but this was perverse. It seemed to stop every five or ten minutes. I held the timetable to the window to verify it in the light.

Madras Egmore

Mambalam

Tambaran

Perungalattur Halt

Vandalur

Guduvanchari

Kattargulattur

Singaperumalkoil