Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta

5/10/78 Bus to Bangalore - sounds rather poetic. A frighteningly modern city with dozens of cinemas (saw Day of the Jackal) yet the British certainly left their mark with reasonably effective town planning and beautiful old regimental buildings and officers' quarters - one splendid mansion I discovered in my walks has a brass plate on its imposing gate which reads "Devon Cottage" and underneath "Capt. R. Singh, Indian Navy" - confirmed, when I heard a monstrous booming voice of an angry man, no doubt abusing a servant for not leaving things shipshape.

Then I discovered a delightful park with huge ancient shady oaks and elms and knee high grass, obviously once trim and formal, but now neglected, decrepit and overgrown - but just right to escape the heat and noise of furious traffic. Auto trishaws buzz around beeping like sick cicadas and resembling huge bumble bees darting in and about the traffic with their two tone yellow and black, and their drivers invariably young, smartly dressed with khaki shirt and trim moustache, thinking themselves to be kamikaze pilots as they wend through people, oxcarts, buses with big bulb horns honking, pedal trishaws, "Ambassador" cars (India's Holden), and yet even more people, more than you'd ever believe possible, all busy in the amazing process of life survival.

Armed with Taylor Caldwell's Great Lion of God, the fascinating story of St Paul, I endured the bus journey to Madras, surprised to pass through numerous eucalyptus stands which seemed to thrive in the hot, arid, red-soiled, rocky environment (and the cows, bless their sacred bovine hearts, don't eat 'em). An occasional ruined fort flashed by, evoking images of dusty red-coated, polo playing regiments, and Raj's and mutinies and such things.

At Madras station, familiar scenes and smells once again. Beggars whining, luggage trolleys rumbling past, baskets full of dried fish sitting in the sun with the flies, dogs getting squashed under trains. You eat at the surprising clean and cheap railway restaurants - always two - Vegetarian, and Non-Vegetarian (which somehow sounds like a double negative). Coffee (kopi) comes sometimes as a glass of hot sweet milk, with a blob of instant coffee on top (to prove that it's the more expensive instant Nescafe, rather than the local ground mixture) and no spoon. Official porters with red faded coats sleep on the platforms in between train arrival. Official vendors of tea and soft drinks and dubious looking food, cry out their wares. Large families squat on mats midst their possessions looking very tired, wondering whether the next train will be theirs - already it's 17 hours late. No help from the information desk - there's one man patiently dealing with a crowd five deep, all shouting for attention first. You see, the floods in the north had seriously affected several major routes and no-one knew for sure the latest emergency schedules. Normally, the Indian train system is pretty efficient with their times.

Finally I got a berth on a train scheduled to get to Calcutta in a roundabout way, taking three days, instead of one. Well, I sigh, beggars can't be choosers. “Beggars” is an unfortunate word choice. Having a reserved seat in a reserved compartment, it was awful to see my fellow 'privileged' passengers roughly deny access to the thousands of hopefuls desperately trying to join the train as the journey progressed. The doors were locked from the inside at the stations. Afterwards, I received a note from an American family with whom I was travelling earlier - they were not so lucky 10 days before: despite travelling first class, the compartments were jam packed with flood affected people, so much so that they were physically unable to reach the toilets at the ends of the carriage, and they were all badly suffering from diarrhoea. They had no option but to use plastic bags in their open compartment, to be disposed of out of the window! With hundreds of eyes watching.

My friends for this trip were 20 Indians from YHA heading for the northern province of Sikkim for some 2 weeks of trekking - they asked me along and I said I'd be delighted, but I thought it would be unlikely because of permit requirements (Sikkim is a sensitive area politically). Among them were five liberated Indian ladies, who gave me a remarkable insight of the problems facing young women of this country.
Although hampered by parental control in their social activities, women do seem to have equal job opportunities, more so than any other country that I've visited. But of course "job opportunities" is not so much a question of ability, experience or qualifications, but who you know, who your father is, and your caste. In fact it is now Government policy that people of the Harijan caste (the Untouchables) should be given preference in any job application. The result is we find poorly educated, unqualified, socially hated people in positions of authority, and the system protestingly grinds on with its myriad of rules and regulations - a living legacy of the British and their earlier mistrust of the subservient Indians.

A job opportunity advertised in the press makes fascinating reading: an applicant must perhaps forward a postal note to the value of Rp17-32 (!) along with references, testimonials and school report cards clearly showing marks, position in class, class aggregates, etc, whereupon if the applicant is selected for interview, he/she may travel free from the nearest station 2nd class unreserved (certainly not 1st class for the status of this position), etc etc, and the salary offered is outrageously low. For example, an engineer, M.Sc., 10 years experience would be offered A$4000 p.a. The Government has just announces a ceiling for private enterprise top salary earners (all forms of remuneration and benefits) at approx A$10,000. End of initiative.

Yet there continue to be very many rich people in India. How do they do it?  Well, I bought a windcheater in Darjeeling, and a friend pointed out to me that I has just bought what was meant to be aid from UK for Bangladesh some years back. Shiploads of wheat destined for the starving never reach port, but get sold to another country for a tidy sum. Corruption is an accepted fact of life. If you don't, someone else will, and you'll probably starve - seems to be the philosophy. We have corruption too in Australia - but it seems less outrageously desperate, and much, much more subtle.

The train alternately crawls and speeds through the flooded countryside, bound for Calcutta.