Going by rail is still so fearfully exciting, especially when you haven't for yonks. Of course it's to do with childhood, this absurdly Indian love of train journeys. Our fat green hold-ails and wicker picnic baskets ate almost history now. And a six-hour run does not need berths. Instead, you fit your kinks and bumps into AC chair-cars while an incredibly polite voice tells you on the p.a. that mineral water is on its way.
But there was more on board than the pleasing prospect of a change of aab-o-hawa. My car was packed with ' voluble, beaming pilgrims, some ivith caps tilted in the tedi-topi tradition of Lucknow's bankas, the once-boulevardiers of its chowk. Above their heads were green Samsonite suitcases and white five-litre canisters, coded in green. They were clearly full of water These were sacred '90s koojas (Persian-Tamil word for jug), whispered the elderly Sikh who sat behind, full of holy water from Zamzam, the miracle spring brought forth by God for Hagar when she wandered in the desert with Ishmael. From the sands of Arabia, these koojas were being borne to the banks of the Gomti, with purely Arabic gangajal.
The car rang with the good fellowship of Haj accomplished. Men in front cried "Aur, Hajji?" to men at the back in deliberate, congratulatory affection. There was even a voluble lady, burkhaflap thrown back, who led the plaint that swelled to a roar that really, the fire was the fault of the Pakistanis and how could the Saudi guards block fleeing people?
The Sikh spoke for every eavesdrbpper when he wondered why early BBC reports had been so quick to flash a Pakistani's voice repeatedly saying the fire had begun in the Indian camp. Much headshaking and angry tut-tutting followed, tee-shirted men even let drop Pooja Bhatt on the Stardust cover. The polite train voice came on just then, like the ashareeri warning Kans mama of his doom: the Shatabdi was approaching Aligarh, a city famed for its tradition of Islamic learning and would we please remember to take along or destroy our water bottles when we eventually disembarked at Kanpur or Lucknow, to prevent their misuse.