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March 16, 2006

A chance meeting

As soon as the second Test finished I got packed as quickly as possible and waited in the hotel lobby for my lift to the train station in Chandigarh. There was some delay as three hotel staff engaged in a prolonged and heated debate that had something to do with my bill. The argument lasted about five minutes, and was conducted entirely in Hindi. It could only be resolved, it turned out, by me putting my signature on huge swathes of official looking documents which I did obediently and hurriedly. I still have no idea what the argument was about, nor what I was signing, so I may well get home to discover I have handed over everything I own to a syndicate of hotel receptionists whose names I may never know and for whom I might have to cook and clean until I’m eighty.

I also had to wait for my travel agent, Barry, to confirm the details of my journey and introduce me to the man driving me to the station. “You’ve got the same driver we used yesterday” he told me, “he hit a motorbike, actually, so he might drive a bit slower than usual”. Comforting words.

Embarrassingly, it was only at Chandigarh station that I was left entirely to my own devices for the first time on the trip. Travelling with the press corps we go around as a large group, and every time we pass through a gateway or check-in, a man appears with a little sign telling us where to go. Here I was all alone, getting in everybody’s way as I wheeled my suitcase around trying to find a sign whose instructions I could understand, or someone that might help. In the end I just allowed myself to be swept up in the general mayhem and seeing where it led me, a technique that I have found myself using with surprising success on this trip.

Once I got into the right carriage and found my seat I realised that there was no space for my luggage, but about ten other passengers got up and all moved theirs along to make space for mine. I can’t imagine that happening on GNER. Nor, for that matter, could I imagine the stranger sitting next to me explaining their conversion to Christianity in quite such vivid and excited terms. Hey ho.

At one stop a huge number of photographers got on and crammed into the next carriage, all snapping away furiously at something or someone. When the scrum had calmed down and they had all got off I asked a passing passenger what the excitement was. It turned out that Kumble and Dravid were travelling on the train, and were happy to pose for photographs with any old idiot, so I trotted through to get a picture taken with them.

They couldn’t have been nicer. I congratulated Kumble on his 500th Test wicket and chatted briefly with Dravid about Scotland, where he played two summers ago. I then sat down with them and had a photo taken. Rather cleverly, you will notice, I have somehow made it look as if they had asked to have their photo taken with me.

They were clearly both thrilled.

Posted by Miles.Jupp at March 16, 2006 2:02 PM

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