Indian Takeaway Part 2

We would never have gone out to eat food that Mum could have made at home. That would have been pointless. Why pay over the odds for home food? But Mum didn't have a tandoor and no matter how good her spicy yoghurt mix, no matter how well she balanced the chilli and the lemon, no matter how infused her chicken became, it never ever tasted like it had come out of a clay oven.

So we went to this little place and gorged on tandoori food. I remember it being delicious and my father being very excited about it. I didn't quite understand why he was so happy eating red chicken; it was only years later that I fully comprehended how much my dad missed the food of the Punjab, the food of his home. We ate there every year on my dad's birthday for a few years until the place burnt down. Perhaps the victim of over-eager cooking.

Sauchiehall Street was very much in my mind as I arrived in Trivandrum late at night. It's another twenty-minute cab ride from the airport to the hotel in Kovalam. The contents of my mind could not have jarred more dramatically with the scenery around me as I walked across the runway to the terminal building. I was entering the tropical heat of southern India with its palm trees and sand, while in my mind I saw the postcards of palm trees and sand behind the bar of that small restaurant in Elmbank Street. The plane had started its journey in Bangalore, a place I would be visiting at some point soon, and had stopped at Cochin to fill up with more pa.s.sengers all heading for the final stop, Trivandrum. Even though night was upon us, the temperature was only one notch below oppressive. I wonder how one deals with such heat all day and all night long?

This was the beginning of my quest. Once my journey started, I would have to give myself over to the complete travelling experience. I would have to make do with whatever mode of transport, whatever accommodation and whatever people were available. I realised that this was the last moment I had total control. I could parachute myself into deepest darkest India to test my culinary resolve in the most unforgiving of circ.u.mstances, the most intense of arenas: a small rural village a dirt-track away from western civilisation where ancient Indian cooking traditions have developed over millennia; a verdant cove of Indianness, untouched, unspoilt, unaccustomed to the strange vagaries of the western palate. I could have done that. Or I could have booked myself into a glorious five star Taj health and wellness spa. Guess what I did ...

It seemed strange all those years later to be in the Taj Green Cove, a five-star hotel in India, when little of my childhood was spent anywhere but at home. And this hotel was a rather extreme version of opulence. Set in acres of tropical forest the accommodation was a series of chalets, nonchalantly scattered over the side of a small hill, overlooking the azure blue Arabian Sea below. This was one of those places where one forgets one is in India and is sure to have entered paradise. Perhaps this was the new India, the international globe-trotting hedonists' India?

One of the main reasons I came to this hotel was because they offered a Sadhya Sadhya meal, a 'Big Feast'. Nothing too subtle in that translation. It originally offered sixty-four courses of vegetarian food, eight varieties of eight different curries. Sixty-four. And then a further eight desserts. Nice. Traditionally served on a banana leaf, dishes are served with almost mathematical precision, each area of the leaf having a designated curry type. One is meant to sit cross-legged on the floor to eat. As the maitre d' and head waiter and sommelier accompanied me to my table, I felt a little self-conscious at the thought of my oversized a.r.s.e having to somehow negotiate its way floorward. Luckily the hotel had dispensed with that requirement of the meal, a 'Big Feast'. Nothing too subtle in that translation. It originally offered sixty-four courses of vegetarian food, eight varieties of eight different curries. Sixty-four. And then a further eight desserts. Nice. Traditionally served on a banana leaf, dishes are served with almost mathematical precision, each area of the leaf having a designated curry type. One is meant to sit cross-legged on the floor to eat. As the maitre d' and head waiter and sommelier accompanied me to my table, I felt a little self-conscious at the thought of my oversized a.r.s.e having to somehow negotiate its way floorward. Luckily the hotel had dispensed with that requirement of the Sadhya Sadhya meal and I allowed the waiter to lay my crisp, white linen napkin across my lap. I appeared to be the only diner in the beautifully appointed dark-wood dining room. The smell of jasmine drifted on the air. meal and I allowed the waiter to lay my crisp, white linen napkin across my lap. I appeared to be the only diner in the beautifully appointed dark-wood dining room. The smell of jasmine drifted on the air.

A banana leaf sat before me, nearly three feet wide and eighteen inches in depth. It had already been adorned with mango pickle, mango chutney, salt and a banana. It was like the start of a surrealist food gag. Then the onslaught arrived. Wave after wave of rice, daal, vegetables, more rice, papads, daal, yoghurt, coconut rice, more papads ... I don't know about you, but I can eat loads. Really. Within an hour and a half I was languis.h.i.+ng under my own body weight in lentils, yoghurt and vegetables. Languis.h.i.+ng, but not yet happily full, not yet content in the stomach department. Finally dessert arrived. Only three of these, each sweeter and richer than the other. I was replete. Good and proper.

I stole myself off to my room. I had planning to do. I had to decide on a meal to cook for the executive chef, Arzooman, and his crack team of sous chefs. I lulled myself off to sleep that night with thoughts of beautifully roasted chunks of lamb in an anchovy and garlic sauce and found myself dreaming about creamy, b.u.t.tery mash and perfectly seasoned broccoli with a tangy hollandaise sauce.

The following evening I wandered through that same dining room, nodding familiarly to the maitre d', the head waiter and the sommelier. This time I continued past my table and beyond the door that separates the world of the guest from the world of the kitchen. I had been told that I had the run of the kitchen; it was a ma.s.sive hotel and having read through all the various menus for all the various restaurants and clubs I had appraised myself fairly well of the ingredients available. I couldn't help but feel nervous. I had no excuses, nowhere to hide. Arzooman knows what good food tastes like. And the thought of being back in a commercial kitchen was both thrilling and terrifying, hampered as I was with English as a first language. That and the fact that I knew all the staff would look at me like some freak of nature.

'Why does the slightly overweight Sikh man from Britain want to come and cook British food in our kitchen?' I could almost hear them asking.

I didn't have a ready answer.

For a moment I'm genuinely not sure why I am here and what I am doing. What do I seek to achieve by cooking for these people? Are they any more likely to understand British life after a plate of my food? Did Glaswegians feel any more knowledgeable about the history and culture of India after a chicken bhuna and a peshawari nan, with a side order of aloo gobi? And it's not like the food I am cooking will be anywhere near the standard of the food Arzooman cooks. I steel myself, reminding myself that it's only food. What have I got to lose apart from my credibility, my reputation and my way on a journey that has only just begun. That calms me right down. I head down to the kitchen.

I'm handed a purple ap.r.o.n that clashes terribly with my pink kurta top. My attempt to articulate this fas.h.i.+on faux pas is greeted with stony silence by one of Arzooman's sous chefs. It's going to be a long night. And suddenly I realise that Arzooman has dedicated his entire continental kitchen to me: a kitchen completely open to the public gaze, a kitchen where my every mistake can be publicly witnessed. Marvellous.

I remind myself that if this evening goes badly and I manage to c.o.c.k the whole thing up, lose a finger and poison a commis chef, then I am ent.i.tled to plead the defence of valiant failure, repack my wheely case and return to Britain. I explain my quest to Arzooman. He understands that I want to travel the country of my forefathers, that I wish to explore my heritage and free my mind of the preconditioned opinions I had of India as I was growing up. He is also very acutely aware of the tension that exists in my dual ident.i.ty, but seems perfectly comfortable with my sense of Britishness and Indianness. Perhaps that is because he has travelled much of the world; he trained in Chicago and Switzerland. He knows something of being an outsider. The only thing he doesn't get is my desire to cook British food.

'It's b.l.o.o.d.y hilarious, man!' he says after I poke and prod my way through his superficial politeness.

'Why?' I ask.

'Listen, man,' he explains. 'These guys, Indians, are obsessed with food, but only Indian food. I cook hundreds of meals here every week and they are mostly eaten by foreigners. Indians rarely come and eat here. Which is fine because we are an international hotel.'

I take a moment and look around the restaurant. It is early, he is right. There are very few Indians eating; and those who are here seem to have ordered from the Indian menu. I'm in trouble. Deep trouble.

This is my first dish in what promises to be a long and winding road through India. The Indians are not well acquainted with British food, less so Scots food. But I have decided that my opening foray into the education of the Indian palate should be something straight out of the heart of my childhood; a plate of food that by its ingredients and history alone tells the story of where I come from, the story of Scotland. I need to be bold, uncompromising, resolute. I must embrace my quest and deliver to Arzooman and his chefs a dish that epitomises all I am, all I hope to be. I will give them stovies.

You've probably never heard of stovies. They are utterly delicious delicious and quintessentially Scottish. It is a peasant dish, said to have come from the gentry handing leftover meat from Sunday lunch to their workers. The workers would then combine this meat with potatoes and onions, frying the mixture in dripping, thereby creating 'stovies'. This would last them the week, until the next Sunday. Much like my mum and her two pot method. Every Sunday night my mother would cook one pot of meat or chicken and one pot of daal or vegetable. By Wednesday of that week both pots would be almost empty. So on a Thursday evening both pots were combined giving us innovations such as lamb and cauliflower or chicken and daal. This was the two-pot method.

The stovies I grew up eating were mince stovies. Another common thread between the Punjab and Scotland is the combination of mince and potatoes. The Punjabis have keema, curried mince with quartered potatoes, the fl oury potatoes mas.h.i.+ng down into the rich, spicy, minced lamb which would then be enveloped in a hot b.u.t.tery chapatti. The Scots love their mince and tatties. We got stovies at school, once a week on a Tuesday. It was my favourite meal of the week; it was also my elder brother Raj's favourite meal of the week, because it was the only lunch that was bereft of vegetables.

So I feel stovies somehow speak from both sides of my heritage. And if I am to find myself on this culinary adventure around India I must be bold, uncompromising and resolute. I must be...

But suddenly I am meek, compromising and irresolute. I can't cook a plate of stovies in a five-star hotel for an internationally trained chef and his team. It would be mental. How could I possibly convey to them the myriad reasons for what is effectively a plate of carbohydrate-heavy brown sludge that tastes of comfort? I can't do it. So instead I choose to cook something really poncy and European.

I pitch the idea of an Indian pesto to the not-altogether-convinced Arzooman. I explain that while it seems part of my culinary journey is bringing Britain and Europe to India, I am also trying to take a little of India back to Britain and Europe. I choose not to even mention stovies. Instead I suggest a pesto with coconut, coriander and paneer.

'Coconut, coriander and paneer?' The stress is all on the question mark. His face is deeply quizzical.

He thinks for a moment.

'Not paneer, man. It's too... grainy. Not smooth enough for a pesto.'

'Oh,' I respond, trying my hardest to look simultaneously unfl.u.s.tered and knowledgeable. 'Yeah. Paneer. Too grainy.'

The usual cheese used in a pesto is either pecorino or parmesan. Arzooman doesn't use pecorino, parmesan is limited and expensive, and I don't want to use such a precious kitchen resource. And as I stand face to face with Arzooman I suspect that I may be close to tears. His eyes light up.

'You can use strained yoghurt, man.' With that he rushes into the kitchen.

Strained yoghurt instead of cheese? I try hard not to look confused. Confused and ill. This yoghurt strained through muslin sounds similar to something my mum used to make when I was a boy: paneer. My mum would boil milk and then split it, with the addition of distilled vinegar. There's nothing quite as repulsive as the smell of split milk. Actually there is: split milk solids tied up in muslin. That's what my mum would do. Once the milk was split, she would pour the entire mixture into the largest piece of muslin I have ever seen, the solids being caught in the muslin and the water draining away. She would then tie the muslin to the tap in the sink and allow every last drop of liquid to escape. Later the paneer would then be chilled and cut into cubes or grated, with its mince-like consistency. Paneer. I often think of this bulging ma.s.s of cloth dripping smelly cheese-water over the kitchen sink. And she wondered why we were less than keen to eat it? The fact that the stink of the preparation bore no similarity to the delicious taste of paneer was lost on us children. We simply refused to eat it. And she would shout at us to eat it until we cried. As children we cried over split milk. As opposed to spilt milk.

Thoughts of my mum lead me uncomfortably to thoughts of my dad. I'm fairly sure that if he were with me in this kitchen he would suggest I put down my cooking implements and return to my room for a wee lie down and a gentle thought-regathering session. But alas, my dad is on the other side of the world, the Indian man in Britain while I, the British man in India, am attempting to bluff my way through.

Arzooman is back clutching a small, golf-ball sized white package. 'Strained yoghurt, man. Use the good stuff.' He nonchalantly throws the cling-film-wrapped soft yoghurt ball over to me.

I catch it with both hands. 'Great!' I say, again trying that simultaneous look of unfl.u.s.tered and knowledgeable. 'This'll be great.'

The chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s are slit and a cavity fas.h.i.+oned within them. The b.r.e.a.s.t.s are skinless. Ordinarily I would have preferred skins to have remained intact; the skins have so much flavour and they take much more colour than the naked flesh, but ho hum, skinless it is. At the continental cooking counter, visible to the entire poolside restaurant crowd that has slowly started to filter in, I am furiously chopping coriander and grating fresh coconut. Time to blend my Indian pesto. It seems only right and proper that I use coconut, so ubiquitous in Kerala that it featured seven times in seven different dinner dishes from the Sadhya feast the day before. The coriander is fine; my only concern is this strained yoghurt thing. It is like ricotta but less rich and more tart. I would have to balance it somehow.

The pesto is whizzed and turns out to be quite delicious. I try hard to hide my surprise from Arzooman. He tries less hard to hide his from me. I delicately stuff my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and close off the holes with toothpicks. The last thing I want is pesto spillage; that's ugly and unnecessary. My plan is for the b.r.e.a.s.t.s to fry and then roast so that the ricotta, the coriander and the coconut will meld and merge and set slightly within the cavity. Generally that's another good reason for resting the chicken, apart from the fact that rested meat is tastier for allowing the juices to settle back into the flesh.

Meanwhile I have my stock reducing. I pop the skinless chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s into the frying pan, adjusting the timing for absence of skin. As they fry away, I add my wine to the chicken stock. Arzooman has gone away to talk to someone about a banquet for 500 and I ask the humourless sous chef he has given me where the oven is. I've turned the chicken and need to finish it off. He points at a microwave and grabs my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, so to speak. I have images of exploding pes...o...b..mbs and manage to wrestle them back from his over-zealous hands. Arzooman returns and chastises the sous before sending him off with them to the oven.

The b.r.e.a.s.t.s spend a few minutes luxuriating in the heat of the oven. I spend the time watching my stock, willing it to reduce. Because that really works: pot watching. Stovies would have been so much easier. They would have had no expectations of stovies. I could have added a handful of chopped green chillies, a soupcon of ginger and a smattering of garlic, and convinced them that it was traditional Scottish fare. When it comes to a stuffed and pan-fried chicken breast with a white wine sauce, there is nowhere to hide.

Plating up time. In a proper kitchen there is a certain presentational pressure. Food has to look good. I gently place my perfectly cooked chicken breast, even if I say so myself, on the centre of the plate. The white wine and chicken stock reduction has been enriched with wonderfully sumptuous Indian b.u.t.ter which surrounds and elevates the chicken. I serve the chicken up to Arzooman and his chefs, not confident to send it out to paying customers. I watch them tuck in with grunts. Since it is nigh-on impossible to distinguish between grunts of approval and grunts of derision I err on the side of optimism: they are grunts of approval. As they eat my chicken stuffed with Indian pesto I ponder what their reaction might have been to a plate of mashed potatoes and mince.

That night I lay in bed worrying about whether this whole trip was a good idea. I had managed to pan-fry a chicken breast and reduce a white wine sauce in a state of the art commercial kitchen with an entire team of chefs on hand and the finest ingredients one could fly into India. These guys ate and cooked, cooked and ate European food every day. And what I had cooked could never really be described as British; it was the b.a.s.t.a.r.d child of French and Italian cuisine with a misplaced Indian influence. This was no sort of challenge. I felt indulged by Arzooman, a nice man and a talented chef. I had thought my dish would impress him, I had hoped my quest would inspire him. But he really didn't get the idea of me bringing my food to India. Maybe this trip was much less about what I was taking to India and much more about the impact India would have on me. That night I can't say that I didn't consider packing my bags and going home, the words of my father ringing in my ears: 'Son, if British food was all that good, then there would be no Indian restaurants in Britain.'

The fact that there are more Indian restaurants than almost any other in the UK did not mean anything as I faced the next stage of my journey. I was leaving the cosseted comfort of Kovalam and heading for the ant.i.thesis of five-star India.

The next morning I took my wheely bag and my desire to cook up towards the north-east, to Madras on the way to a small fis.h.i.+ng town and a fisherman.

4.

OH, I DO LIKE TO BE.

BESIDE THE SEASIDE!.

It was an easy car ride to the station from the luxurious elegance of the Taj Green Cove. I may have left behind Arzooman and his kitchen, but his words mixed with my father's and reverberated around the inside of my quickly emptying head. What was I doing? I had a choice. I could simply take a train to an airport and write a book about gardening. Or I could knuckle down and embrace this journey of self-discovery. (So far all I had discovered about myself was that I had a lot of self-discovering to do.) Trivandrum train station was possibly the quietest railway station I have ever visited in India; I am, however, not complaining. It was lunchtime; the sun beat unrelentingly, no doubt worn out from its day's s.h.i.+ning. All of the eight tracks in the station were full of dark-blue and sky-blue painted trains. Latent expectation filled the air. This felt like my first proper foray into India. The airports had been unreal nexuses into the country and the briefly s.n.a.t.c.hed beauty of Cochin had a slight dreamlike quality about it. Trivandrum felt real.

I couldn't come to India and not go to Madras. All my childhood I thought Madras was solely the description for a curry. Some chef somewhere had decided that naming a dish after Madras would be a good idea. It could so easily have been a chicken delhi, or king prawn bangalore, or lamb pondicherry. But madras it was, so the name went down in culinary legend: the city that gave us a mild curry. And to be honest, the mild curry is about the most interesting thing about Madras. It would appear to be a quite unremarkable city, given its status as India's fourth largest city. No one ever raves about how amazing Madras is; there are no stories relating great temples and amazing sights. It is the capital of Tamil Nadu, the state that stretches down the south-east coast of India, subsuming the tip above Sri Lanka. But while Madras holds no great intrigue for the traveller itself, it is a conduit to those ancient temples, stone carvings and spiritual experiences of India. This is the side of India the westerners sought. This was the India that seemed, inexplicably, to answer the questions that these travellers carried with them from thousands of miles away.

My plan was to venture to a small fis.h.i.+ng town south of Madras, a place called Mamallapuram, or Mahabalipuram, to give it its proper Tamilian name. Mamallapuram is home to some of India's most photographed monuments and is a town over-endowed with architectural and religious beauty. It is also a place that was devastated by the tsunami of 2004, the first disaster in modern Indian history when the nation of India refused external aid and attempted to repair itself. As a child the overwhelming images I saw of India on TV were of a nation bent and broken by famine, poverty and natural disaster. India seemed forever to be asking the rest of the world for help, for aid, for understanding. And one might have expected that such requests would have been made after the devastation of the tsunami, the shocks of which were felt on the east coast of India. But this time, India decided that it had the economic prosperity and infrastructural wherewithal to sort out its own problems. India politely refused the aid of the international community and set about saving its own people. Whether India succeeded in its self-sufficiency is a moot point; the fact was that it felt able to make such a stand. This was modern India looking after itself. I wanted to see it for myself.

Break of Journey RulesTrivandrum Train StationPa.s.sengers holding single journey ticket can break their journey at any station en route after travelling 500km from the starting station. However break of journey will not be permitted short of the station up to which the reservation has been made.If a pa.s.senger seeking a reservation on a through ticket asks for a break of journey en route he must clearly indicate on the requisition form the names of the stations where the break journey is requested. Reservation in this case will be done up to break station only. One break journey is permitted for tickets up to 1000km and two break journeys are permitted for tickets of 1000km and above. During the break of your journey you can stay two days at the intended station excluding day of arrival and the day of departure.

My train is the 12:30 Anatpuri Express from Trivandrum Central to Chennai (Madras). It may not be significant, but this train seems to be sporting livery of orange, white and green, the selfsame colours of the Indian flag. It looks clean and comfortable. Not so much the lap of luxury but certainly leaning comfortably into the shoulder of luxury. The train seems almost suspiciously quiet. I worry that perhaps there is information that has not been shared with me, some conspiracy that has seen this train cancelled with all the pa.s.sengers tiptoeing off, unseen, to board another, better, faster train to take them to Madras. Paranoid? Me?

PLEASE PULL UP BACKREST-c.u.m-BED.

DURING 6 A.M. TO 9 P.M. TO AVOID INCONVENIENCE TO SITTING Pa.s.sENGERS INCONVENIENCE TO SITTING Pa.s.sENGERS.

On checking the itinerary list chalked on the side of one of the carriages I soon realise that this is the slow train to Madras; it will stop many times and bite off a fresh load of travellers. Rumour has it that we will arrive on the east coast of India sometime around 2 p.m. the following day: just over a day away. I make my way to carriage A1, seat 14, UB. UB stands for upper bunk. This is the sleeper train. I will be sleeping on this train. Hopefully. It will be the first time that I have travelled in an Indian sleeper train since my childhood.

When I was a boy, between 1977 and 1983 my dad brought his three sons to India every other summer. The first visit was whistlestop to say the least. We came for my uncle's wedding. Time was of the essence. Much of that holiday was a blur. But what I do remember is the train journey.

It was 1979. My family were a family of meagre means. So when it came to flying we had little choice in terms of prospective airlines. In fact for 'little' choice read Hobson's choice: Aeroflot. Even all these years on the name fills me with stomach-curdling dread. Aeroflot was the national airline of the then pre-Glasnost USSR. There are many words to describe the Aeroflot experience, but in my father's context there was only one epithet worth concentrating on: cheap. And Aeroflot was cheap; substantially cheaper than all the compet.i.tion, because of course, in Soviet Russia there was no compet.i.tion. We flew Aeroflot from London to Delhi, having first schlepped ourselves and our not insubstantial luggage down to London on the coach. That's the other thing you need to bear in mind about travelling to India in the 1980s. India was a closed market, an epoch away from the vibrant free-market booming economy of today. You couldn't get anything in India. So whenever a relative from 'Velat', the west as they call it in the Punjab, came visiting they were compelled to bring gifts, gifts to show how successful their lives had become since leaving India. (There is no irony in the fact that many Indians who left enjoy a marginally lower standard of living outside India than they might have enjoyed had they stayed.) I remember that we had packed our luggage full of chocolate to take to our cousins. My mum had also bought us loads of new clothes to wear. Fancy jumpers, smart trousers and kung fu-style pyjamas. I loved those pyjamas. I still do.

So there we were, our flesh and bone far outweighed by our luggage full of gifts, alighting a plane in Delhi, having spent the entire journey not being able to communicate with the Russian-speaking stewardesses; the only phrase my father knew in Russian sounded like: 'caca familia?' which appeared to mean: 'what is your name?' A conversation opener no doubt, but rather useless when the stewardesses wore name tags.

That year my dad, Raj, Sanjeev and I Mum stayed at home to run the shop landed in Delhi a few days before Christmas and headed straight for a taxi to catch a train to the city of Ferozepure in the heart of Punjab. The Shatabdi Express would ghost us through the night and deliver us home. Home. There's that word again. My father's home; my grandfather's home. As kids we had rarely travelled on trains; in fact prior to that sleeper journey in India, I have no previous recollection of ever having travelled on a train. Not that any other train journey could have prepared me for the Shatabdi. The Shatabdi Express is my dad's favourite train in all the world, a train lodged in my father's folklore, a train that carries the Punjabi ma.s.ses home from the capital to their families in the towns, villages and farms. The Shatabdi Express is the locomotive equivalent of a Sikh: proud, fierce and a little lumbering. The exterior livery of these seemingly ma.s.sive trains was navy blue with a sky-blue stripe across the lower third. The sky-blue colour motif continued within the interior of the trains: sky-blue vinyl seats, sky-blue floor, sky-blue curtains. We had entered a sky-blue world. The carriages were laid out in two sections. Along one side of the train two benches faced each other, the other side of the gangway had two single seats face on. This was the daytime arrangement. At night the sky-blue world became even more sky blue as the seats morphed into bunks. The eight seated travellers soon became eight supine travellers.

There I was, a ten-year-old boy, more excited than excitement itself at the notion of an all-night train journey, a journey that involved a secret fold-down sky-blue bed. The four of us filled our section of the train with antic.i.p.ation, as it trundled us along to my grandfather's house in my grandfather's town of Ferozepure.

For us it was the most amazing adventure. Even adults find train journeys in India exhilarating. Imagine how my brothers and I felt.

We were jet-lagged and found ourselves, almost by default, in a sleeper carriage at New Delhi train station, having fought our way though the hordes. I could see my dad trying his best to contain his excitement. He hadn't been back in India for over ten years; since he had left his father had pa.s.sed away. And now he was going home. I remember vividly being transfixed by the country that slipped by the grated window. I clung on, pulling myself closer in the descending gloom, trying to see more than the light would let me. And later trying in vain to sleep. The noise of people alighting and boarding; men selling snacks; babies crying; friends laughing; old women gossiping. And then morning came, a hazy, grey morning, a morning somewhat unsure of its own credentials. A mist lay upon Ferozepure as we unloaded our luggage from the train, only to reload it on the back of an ox-drawn carriage.

This was the India I first knowingly laid eyes on; a very real India, an unpretentious India. And I think I fell in love with it without even knowing.

Twenty-eight years later I sit alone in an almost identical train compartment, missing my father and missing my brothers. I am joined by a sweet young family. The good-looking young husband stretches his feet across the benches as his wife reclines with someone I a.s.sume is her younger sibling; the younger sibling sitting cross-legged atop the bench provides a makes.h.i.+ft pillow for her older, more amply endowed sister. The children sit and play on the top bunks of the adjoining compartment.

At 16.21, nine minutes before before its designated time of departure, the Anatpuri Express reluctantly pulls out of Trivandrum train station. Fifteen minutes later we have stopped for no good reason. But this is India; you never need a good reason for anything. You rarely need a reason at all. The hiatus is filled with an army of shabbily uniformed, pungent young boys singing their wares, offering tea, coffee, snacks and sweets. its designated time of departure, the Anatpuri Express reluctantly pulls out of Trivandrum train station. Fifteen minutes later we have stopped for no good reason. But this is India; you never need a good reason for anything. You rarely need a reason at all. The hiatus is filled with an army of shabbily uniformed, pungent young boys singing their wares, offering tea, coffee, snacks and sweets.

Then, with an almost mechanical unwillingness, the train is moving again and the chai boys are replaced with equally shabbily uniformed train staff who hand out freshly laundered white sheets, pillows and grey, scratchy-looking blankets. This is the first stage of the metamorphosis of a day train into a sleeper, the entry into the white-sheeted world of night.

Kerala has become Tamil Nadu much sooner than I had thought. I realise this because a message appears on my phone display with a beep, welcoming me to Tamil Nadu. If Kerala was verdant, then Tamil Nadu is no different. Even in the final embers of daylight I can see the coconut tree jungles that line either side of the railway tracks. The Tamilian sky seems a little angrier than the Keralan one. We cross a beautiful lagoon cut into the red clay earth; it's almost like civilisation hasn't happened as the deep, feral-red clay vies with the sparkling, azure-blue water for prominence.

We stop just a few yards ahead at a small local train station, an afterthought of a place with no more than a hut and a tree suggesting a place to stop. There is the usual all-too-frantic coming and going, which in itself would not be a problem if it weren't for the fact that those who want to come and those who want to go seem to want to do it at exactly the same time, which is the perfect recipe for pandemonium. Amongst those joining our happy band of travellers is an old, yellowed-eyed man with a matching yellow s.h.i.+rt that once was white. His skin has been sunkissed on a daily basis and is now so dark it is almost black. His thick, white hair makes his skin look darker still and he possesses the most vacant of expressions. He carries a shoulder bag, a suitcase and a large sack of mangoes. Quite why he has decided to transport mangoes manually no one knows. This is after all India; mangoes are in plentiful supply. He pauses a moment and looks blankly at me and the young family. He mutters something inaudible to himself and takes himself and his mangoes further down the carriage. There is an unspoken sense of relief shared between the young family and me. Although there is s.p.a.ce for another pa.s.senger in our compartment, we would be all too happy to travel as we are and enjoy the extra s.p.a.ce s.p.a.ce that would have been further compromised by a sackful of mangoes.

Our relief is premature. We are joined by a short neat man with large gla.s.ses and a fulsome beard. At first I mistake him for one of our Muslim brethren and I quietly enjoy the multi-faith microcosm that this carriage represents: the Glaswegian Sikh, the Hindus and the Muslim. But he's not a Muslim; the short, neat-bearded man starts talking and informs us that he is a Christian pastor. No sooner has he established his theological credentials than he has a laptop out, unremitting in his desire to save souls for Christ's sake. I have to say the phrase 'Christ's sake' sprang to mind quite often during this journey.

The pastor has a kind face and matching eyes, but he does look tired. No doubt G.o.d's work is never done and requires significant overtime. The contented quiet that I have happily shared with the Hindu family has now been hijacked. Within the next few minutes we have been told that he has just completed his fourth degree, adding to his PhD in Religion (no surprise there, then). He works for Church hospital groups, raising funds and helping with administration. He has been to Trivandrum for a seminar on clinical pastoral care and is now heading back to Chennai. He starts talking to the young family, which it soon transpires are no ordinary young family. The man is the heir to the Indian equivalent of John Lewis. His family owns eight ma.s.sive stores all over India, stocking everything a middle-cla.s.s Indian home could want. I joke with him that like a dentist has bad teeth, he probably has a broken toaster. I don't think the British ubiquity of toasters is the same in India. He looks at me curiously, without laughing. Not only is he the heir to a multinational department market chain he also seems a little anti-religion, which makes for fun in a carriage shared by an evangelical Christian pastor with a laptop and four degrees.

I feel it a good opportunity to explore the carriage. I extricate myself and wander. I see a family of short people who have set up a conveyor belt of sandwich-making. The father hands the mother a slice; she b.u.t.ters; the daughter jams and the younger son brings the slices together in sandwich form, and eats. Beyond them a skinny girl faces her mother, both sitting cross-legged. On their newspaper plates they feast on idli and chutney; nothing could be simpler, nothing could be more delicious. An idli is a steamed dumpling made from a paste of ground rice. The idli itself has no great flavour; it is light and airy, but it is a fabulous conduit for flavour, and when combined with a rich coconut, chilli chutney can elevate the eater to another place altogether.

I return to my compartment hungry. As if by magic, Mr John Lewis offers me a local delicacy: battered and deep-fried plantain. He can't be aware of this most beautiful, most circular of ironies that I, a boy from Glasgow, should find myself on a train in deepest, now darkest south India on a train eating something battered and deep fried. Alas, the plantain only serves to accentuate my hunger and I am more than a little relieved when the porter comes to take our food orders. There seem to be a number of dishes on offer, but I fail fully to comprehend the porter. Mr John Lewis steps in gallantly and translates for me. There appear to be three meals to choose from: a chapatti, a paratha meal or vegetable biryani. Embarra.s.sed by my inability to understand the porter's Hindi and fearful to ask for a more detailed explanation of what a 'meal' entails, I opt for the biryani. How can you go wrong with rice and vegetables?

While we are waiting for the food to be served, the pastor, who has failed to say anything for a few minutes, rediscovers his calling and fires up his laptop. He decides to show Mr John Lewis an image he had stored on his computer. Having shared the image with him he spins his laptop round so I too can be privy to the visual feast. It is a photograph that the pastor has taken in Bangalore airport around one of the food kiosks in the departure lounge. The image shows a medium-sized rat nestled inside an otherwise exemplary gla.s.s-topped display of food; the rat is nibbling away at an aloo boondi, a spiced mashed potato ball, battered and deep fried. Obviously it's the sort of dish loved by humans and rodents. Let me be clear: this food kiosk is not a shabby, side-of-the-road type of affair. It's a beautifully clean, modern Indian food outlet. It would not look out of place in Heathrow airport, save for the rat.

Quite why the pastor has the image on his laptop soon becomes apparent. He is on a crusade against big companies squeezing small businesses out of existence. And Mr John Lewis is big business personified. My holy friend tells me that this 30rupee boondi sells for a sixth of the price in a street stall, yet people feel that street stalls are less hygienic. They are willing to pay the 25-rupee difference in an airport, yet the food is no less unhygienic.

It's a valid point, but I still feel that having a screensaver of a rat eating an airport snack is more than a little weird. Mr John Lewis looks so angry he may explode at any moment with rage. He was not best pleased with the pastor prior to his rant on big business; he is decidedly less well disposed now.

The awkward post-rat silence is broken by the food arriving. I appear to be the only diner. The pastor seems not to eat and the John Lewises have packed a lovely meal of parathas and chutney. My vegetable biryani is surprisingly bland: a ma.s.sive helping of rice with carrots and peas and the very occasional guest appearance made by a floret of cauliflower. It is accompanied by a thimbleful of onion raita. Rice for Goliath, raita for David. But I eat, uncomplaining and grateful for the sustenance.

Then it is time to lower bunks and make beds, all of which happens noiselessly and surprisingly efficiently on Indian trains. Pa.s.sengers become automatons for those few minutes as sheets are spread, pillows placed and blankets unfurled. Individuals exchange places in the cramped s.p.a.ce as if ch.o.r.eographed by some unseen director. At times it is almost balletic.

It is a strange night. I drift in and out of a fitful sleep. The constant motion of the train lulls me off into a gentle sleep, then the infuriatingly frequent stops allow new blood on the train: loud, awake people who fill the lower bunks in other parts of the carriage before themselves drifting off to sleep.

Having started my journey some twenty-three hours earlier we finally arrive in Chennai. No matter what the clocks in the station tell me, my body seems to refuse to accept that it's three o'clock in the afternoon. More asleep than awake, I haul myself out of the train and make for the front of the station. I hope to catch a taxi the remaining 60km or so I need to travel to reach Mamallapuram. I find a decent-looking man outside the station, who ushers me excitedly towards the car park. My Hindi is terrible so I am blissfully unaware of the fact that my decent-looking man is not the owner of a taxi; he is an auto rickshaw driver. For the uninitiated, an auto rickshaw is a scooter around which is attached the paraphernalia of pa.s.senger transport. It's like a small covered couch being pulled along by a 75cc engine. The sides are open adding a certain vibrancy to the journey. They are invariably black with yellow hoods and are best described as rats on wheels.

I love travelling in auto ricks. You feel much more part of the city, hearing and seeing everything at first hand rather than from the back seat of a cab. Besides which, right now I have little choice, since there would appear to be a dearth of cabs around. I agree a price of 500 rupees with the driver. That would seem to be the only thing we agree, since I'm not altogether sure he knows exactly where we are going. It's not till much later on this 60km journey that I fully understand the implications of what I have agreed to.

We stop to check the destination with the local English speaker. This is a bizarre three-way conversation between me (who is speaking English), the rickshaw driver (who is speaking Tamil), and the local English speaker (who speaks both). The driver then refuels and checks the air in the tyres. 'Long journey,' he says to me and almost smiles. Long journey. I should have realised then ...

If you are unused to travelling by auto rickshaw, then a short journey around a city can be quite hair-raising and a tad bruise-worthy. I am not new to the auto rick experience, yet what I hadn't fully taken into account was the fact that Mamallapuram is not just 60km away. It's 60km down a broken, pot-hole-infested, sometimes non-existent road that would seem like an arduous quest even in a luxurious four-wheel drive.

I am b.u.mped and thumped and thrown around the whining little auto rickshaw for the best part of two long hours. My already tired body soon aches with the unrelenting physical a.s.sault of the journey.

Seven things I saw on my two-hour auto rickshaw journey The sh.e.l.l of a white car with no seats or upholstery driven The sh.e.l.l of a white car with no seats or upholstery drivenby a boy sitting on a yellow plastic bucket.A fully grown man going off to work with a Spidermanlunchbox.A mother with three children on a scooter.A bolting cow narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with apacked minibus.About eleven beautifully turned out and uniformed schoolkids in one auto rickshaw.Two children dressed as clowns.Three sari-clad ladies making themselves wet with asprinkler, as if attempting to realise a Bollywood clichejust for me ...

When I eventually get to Mamallapuram I am shattered. I set off from Kovalam nineteen hours ago. I feel defeated. This defeat is compounded by the auto rickshaw driver reneging on the deal we had struck when leaving Chennai. The 500 rupees we had agreed on has now escalated to 700 rupees. I refuse point blank to be blackmailed and after much haggling I pay him 650 rupees. As I walk away from his wronged rebukes I realise that I have saved myself a ma.s.sive sixty pence. I try to convince myself that it isn't about the money: who can put a price on principle?

I check into Greenwoods Beach Resort and fall face first and fully clothed into bed. Which is a mistake because the mattress is the typically hard Indian type: great for your back, not so good for your face. But I sleep.

Three hours later the afternoon has become evening. I am woken by the sound of an errant child, bemoaning his lot in a language I guess to be Tamil. A day ago I was coddled in the five-star luxury of the Taj, and here I find myself in an altogether different world. A basic room with a (hard-mattressed) double bed, a dresser, an Igo TV set with an Onida remote control (which doesn't work), a small bathroom, no toilet paper, no soap. The only wall adornment is a row of four rust-coloured pegs; there used to be five. There is an AC unit, the noisiest AC unit I have ever experienced and of course it would have to be right over the head of the bed. But the room, such as it is, is clean and comfortable and it's home for the next few days. It has been more than twenty-four hours since I last felt clean. I need to feel clean. I wash the day's journey away with the only water that is available: dirty, cold water and I step out to examine the rest of the 'resort' that fatigue had blinded me to on my arrival.

Greenwoods is actually a very charming place. An old rambling house, it is built around a beautiful central garden, tended to and loved by the family that run the guest house. The garden is full of trees and flowers and plants and in the very centre of this fecundity sits a multi-coloured shrine to Lord Ganesh, the elephant G.o.d. It's low season so there seems to be more family that guests.

There is a terrace all the way around the first fl oor, looking in and down on the garden. The errant child is attempting to cajole an older female relative into coming and seeing something high up in a tree. She refuses to move. The child disappears out of view and returns with a long cane at the end of which is a home-fas.h.i.+oned wire hoop. The cane is perhaps three times longer than the grubby-faced boy, but when has endeavour ever stopped a four year old? He lifts the stick up into a mango tree and after a series of sharp, awkward movements, his bounty is released. A large green mango falls to earth. Enormous actually.

The green-fruited prize a.s.suages his Tamilian moans, and he and his younger sister now work out how best to cut the b.u.g.g.e.r. The joys of childhood.

After this brief tour and the ad hoc circus performance, all seems right and proper in the world. I ask the older female relative for directions to the Fisherman's Colony. When Mamallapuram was. .h.i.t by the tsunami and the seafront devastated, a lot of fis.h.i.+ng families lost their livelihoods, which were fairly basic to begin with. The Colony took a year to rebuild. I have arranged to meet one such fisherman, Nagmuthu, son of Mani. He sounds like a character from either The Lord of the Rings The Lord of the Rings or the or the He-Man He-Man cartoons that used to run on ITV on Sat.u.r.day mornings. cartoons that used to run on ITV on Sat.u.r.day mornings.

I would like to say that I had found Nagamuthu, son of Mani, by writing a letter to a cousin's friend who knew a man at the local newspaper who searched the local records and spoke to local people and found a likely candidate. But I actually found Nagamuthu's email address via a website about the events surrounding the tsunami. Why him? Well, he seemed able to communicate in English and he was very happy to let me come and cook.

Greenwoods was telling the truth when it referred to itself as a 'Beach Resort'. It's barely minutes from the sands. On walking to the sea one soon realises how tourist driven Mamallapuram truly is. Trinket shops, cyber cafes, ma.s.sage centres, guest houses it's an unending line of consumer-driven businesses. One of the little stalls sells but three types of produce: cigarettes, cold drinks and toilet paper: surely the distillation of the western tourist's needs?

Soon I'm off the hot tarmac and have the sand between my toes. There are a handful of beach-fronted shacks and I have yet to see anything that looks like a fishermen's colony. Two boys play cricket on the beach; one is wearing what looks remarkably like an a.r.s.enal football top. As I draw closer I realise that it is an a.r.s.enal football top. As an a.r.s.enal fan myself, I consider stopping and chatting to him about the fragility of our midfield last season, to ponder as to whether the back four is less well suited to the offensive component of the modern game and discuss at length the options for an 'in-the-box' striker; but I think better of it. Instead I ask him where I might find Nagamuthu, son of Mani. It would appear that I am standing right outside his shack, the Fisherman Restaurant. I should have guessed.

Mani's shack is little more than a lean-to covered in bamboo. A new concrete wall raises the restaurant floor a couple of metres off the sand, and steps welcome you in. It is sweet, with half a dozen tables, each with a pretty coloured lightshade above. At the back is a small concrete building, the kitchen I'm guessing. There is an old man asleep on the floor and something stirs in a hammock slung between the two central supports of the empty restaurant. The stirring is Nagamuthu; the old man is Mani. Nagamuthu, son of Mani, is asleep in his hammock. There's no way he's going to overthrow Skeletor and win back the Enchanted Forest with mid-afternoon siestas. No way.

He greets me warmly as he rubs sleep out of his eyes. He is a short man, under five and a half feet with Dravidian dark skin. He is stocky and strong, with the sort of musculature that comes from repet.i.tive hard work rather than a gym. He shows me around the kitchen, which is basic. Three steps deep and five paces across, it's small; he has a two-ring burner and a single fridge. I'm now slightly panicking inside; what am I going to cook? Nagamuthu suggests we go to his nearby house to relax and chat. We walk up the hill behind the kitchen and the colony becomes apparent. Nagamuthu tells me that at the time of tsunami, although they lost all their beach-front businesses, luckily their houses were protected. Had it not been for the beach-front shacks ... His voice tails off into uncertainty.

Outside his house there's a discarded fis.h.i.+ng net and a motor boat engine. We enter his house.