Strongest of all was the sense of community and respect. I moved out of the way as a woman carrying a bowl of clay passed it to another woman who met her halfway along the alley. A little further on the second woman was met by a third. Teamwork: it was all around us.
At the same time, the divide between rich and poor was probably clearer here than almost anywhere I’d visited. I spoke to one young guy who lived in a couple of rooms with his brother, his brother’s wife, his sister and his mother. While they made pottery, he worked in a shopping mall selling luxury goods none of which he could afford himself. When he was finished for the day he came home here.
Leaving the slum we headed back towards the hotel where we were due to meet up with an ambulance crew. Up until about five years ago there were no ambulances in Mumbai, an amazing fact given it’s a city of twelve million people. But it was true, if you were in an accident or collapsed for some reason there was nobody to call.
This all changed when a wealthy man’s mother collapsed with a heart attack, and he realised that he had no idea what to do. Thinking that this was an unacceptable situation, he started an ambulance service with a few friends. Initially they funded the service themselves with just five vehicles, and enlisted the help of the London Ambulance Service (reputed to be the best in the world) to organise the logistics of a city-wide operation. They discovered early on that they could spend their lives begging government bodies for grants, so instead they decided to self-finance everything. With the support of an American NGO and some big business sponsors, ‘Dial 1298 for Ambulance’ was born.
This non-profit organisation is run by an energetic and enthusiastic CEO called Sweta. She explained that they have converted thirty small vans into ambulances, many of which are first-responders. There are also twenty much larger and fully equipped Mercedes ambulances, crewed by a driver, a helper and a doctor. The ambulances responded from all over the city and there was a payment tariff, charged only to those who could afford it. It was a great system, with the rich helping to pay for the poor.
Sweta told us that there were five hundred accidents on the railways alone every month. I was gobsmacked. She explained that the railway system is the oldest in Asia, with three major lines that the people refer to as ‘locals’. She said that people just weren’t conscious of their lives. The trains were massively overcrowded, the doors were always open and people hanging out of them would be hit by oncoming trains. I still couldn’t get my head round the numbers - six million travelling by train every day and five hundred serious accidents a month. Sweta said that each train driver in the city kills as many as seventy people during his career. She also told us that many of the ambulance doctors had tended the victims of the Mumbai bombings. On 11 July 2006, Islamic Jihadists attacked a set of commuter trains. Two hundred and seven people were killed, seven hundred more were injured and these ambulances had been in the front line. It was hard to imagine what would have happened if the service had not been operating by that time. Undoubtedly they had saved many lives.
Next Sweta introduced us to Dr Rujuta, who showed us round the Mercedes ambulance we would be travelling in. It was as well equipped as any ambulance in the world: heart monitors, oxygen, defibrillators and suction gear as well as every drug under the sun. The stretcher was collapsible and the back of the ambulance was soundproofed and sealed against infection, which was something I’d never thought about. Then again I’d never been in the back of an ambulance before - every time I’ve had a bike accident it’s been in the desert somewhere and I’ve had to get myself to the hospital.
Dr Rujuta explained that they attended anything from a heart attack to a road traffic accident or the trains, where the injuries could be really grisly. Her primary objective was to stabilise the patient and manage that stability until they were at the hospital. The patient’s emotional state was also very important - accidents could be terrifying, and Dr Rujuta was very concerned to keep the patient calm.
Jumping in the back, we headed for the local station. We parked quite close to the terminal, and after the soundproof journey I was struck again by just how busy the city was. The main road was heaving with traffic and people walking in the road, ducking between the vehicles. All we could hear were car horns. The place was alive with pigeons, so many it made Trafalgar Square look like a bird-free zone; they were everywhere, like a grey cloud swarming the street. The shops were crammed side by side selling anything and everything and the variety of smells was just amazing.
In front of the shops, individual traders had goods laid out on the road: anything from magazines and books to flowers, spice and incense. It was mental, and I loved it.
Something caught my eye and looking again I saw an old beggar lying in the road with his arms sticking up as if he was dead and rigor mortis had set in.
‘Is that the kind of person you deal with?’ I asked the doctor.
She nodded. ‘Rich or poor, our policy is the same. We treat the patient, it doesn’t matter who they are.’
While she went over to see if he was all right, Mungo and I headed for the station, picking our way across the road before taking an underpass to a rickety old footbridge. I realised we’d not seen many tuk-tuks in Mumbai, and Rina told me that the government was trying to phase them out because of pollution. The old Fiat taxis chucked out a lot of CO
2
as well, and over the next few years they would also be replaced. Looking down, we could see that the streets were full of rubbish, the railway sidings caked with so much it encroached on the tracks. It wasn’t just papers and stuff people had thrown away, but piles of dust and rubble, as if bits of buildings had fallen down and the debris had just been swept to one side.
It was incredibly hot, pushing forty degrees and the sweat was pouring off us. Mungo was dripping so much the camera lens was soaked. In the end he tied a home-made sweat rag round his forehead.
From the bridge we could see the station and now I understood how so many people could be involved in so many accidents. The platforms were quite narrow, and packed solid. Trains were coming and going constantly - I counted one every three minutes - and even as they were pulling in people still walked across the tracks. And I mean lots of people, crowds of them, well dressed people, poor people, old people with sticks and women carrying babies: it was madness. The trains themselves had so many passengers hanging from the open doorways it would be easy to get hit. The really scary part, though, were the trains that didn’t stop: they came steaming in at a rate of knots and it was all too easy to imagine what would happen to some unsuspecting soul ambling across the tracks.
‘Imagine being the driver,’ I said to Mungo. ‘Jesus, how traumatic is that?’
We would be taking one of these trains to Mumbai Central Station tomorrow, and from there we would board an overnight train to Delhi. We’d originally thought we might go via Jaipur, but given our commitment to UNICEF in Nepal we’d changed the route. Perhaps it was just as well - a couple of days ago six bombs had gone off there in the space of fifteen minutes - Islamic extremists. The attack had been smack in the middle of a crowded tourist area and had killed eighty people.
The next morning we were reunited with Russ, who was just back from London. He was looking forward to Delhi and picking up the Royal Enfields. Our train left at four o’clock, and we spent a rather luxurious morning in the hotel swimming pool. We figured we deserved a chilled-out morning - we had a challenging route ahead of us.
The humidity sucked the breath out of you and I’d just been for a dip when this older guy came over.
‘I keep seeing you with cameras,’ he said with a smile. ‘What are you guys doing, exactly?’
I explained about our trip, and how we were filming it for the BBC.
‘Oh right. I get it. So are you doing one of those Charley Boorman shows or something?’
I laughed. ‘Or something: I am Charley. Nice to meet you.’
Before we left I took a last look across the Mumbai skyline: a mixture of old and new; the city and the sea. The downtown area was all skyscrapers whereas the residential districts were older, with sloping tiled roofs and arched balconies: there was a hint of the old world still about them. Right on the waterfront was the ‘Gateway to India’, a massive arched monument. It had been the first thing we had spotted when the ship steamed in. A couple of old women with straw brushes were sweeping the rubbish from around this little fragment of empire.
Bags packed, we were on a local train by one-thirty p.m., though Russ almost didn’t make it. I was on board with Mungo, talking about how hot it was, how I was sweating so much I felt as though I was in a shower. Russ was still filming on the platform when the train began to pull away.
Looking round I saw him grab the rail at a run. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘That caught me a bit by surprise.’
Standing at the door I realised just how easy it would be to get clipped by an oncoming train; they really did pass very close and you couldn’t hear them coming above the noise of the one you were on. You could be looking the other way or talking to someone and the next thing you’d be under the wheels and chopped to pieces.
Mumbai Central was an old-fashioned-looking station with the train timetables written on paper and clipped up on boards just like the old days. People were lolling on chairs, some lying asleep on the tiled floor, kids milling about everywhere. I wasn’t feeling great, it was really hot and that seemed to be sapping my energy. The Chinese earthquake was on my mind, and the situation in Burma. Being so close brought home the reality of other people’s lives in a way that watching TV news in Britain never could.
The Delhi train was clean, but cramped: the carriages open-plan with seats and bunks in a C shape on one side of the passageway and single seats that folded down on the other. Each area could be curtained off but it was right on top of the others and the carriage felt a little sterile, a bit like being in a hospital. Rina was travelling with us and she squatted cross-legged on the single seats she’d already folded down.
I was not having a good day: Russ told me I’d lost my sense of humour. I lay on the top bunk with the air-conditioning vent directly above me, so cool it was actually chilly. Before I settled down for the night I taped a piece of the
Herald Tribune
over it, though not until I’d read that more than 75,000 people had been killed so far in Burma. The country seemed to be falling apart and yet their military president was quoted as saying the crisis was under control and they were already rebuilding. Yeah right; less than two weeks after the cyclone had hit.
Lying back I closed my eyes and thought about home: Olly had sent me a video text on my mobile phone and she was wearing the dress I’d sent from Dubai. Kinvara had finished her SATS and had been delighted to tell me she’d got the part of the caterpillar in the school production of
Alice in Wonderland
. Doone had just finished a tough first year at secondary school. I missed them, and it would still be quite a long while before I saw them. But we had already covered close to seven thousand miles and tomorrow we would be in a new city - Delhi. I fell asleep thinking of my girls back home. They were a long way away.
13
Oiled Up and Knee Down
I woke up on another train. It’s a great way to cover long distances but I’m not a fan, you never sleep properly and the next morning you feel as if you’ve got jet lag.
We were a couple of hours from Delhi and it was much drier here, the earth dusty and the buildings tattered and run down. The people were waiting for the rains, every inch of land sown with crops.
As the scenery flashed by, I wondered what we would do after we’d met up with UNICEF in Nepal. Our original route would have taken us in a fairly straight line from the eastern side of the Black Sea across Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the political turmoil in those countries had forced us to come south. There was no chance now of taking a Cessna from Burma to Laos, and with the Tibetan border still closed and the tragedy in Sichuan, we might have to accept defeat and take a commercial air flight from Kathmandu to Hong Kong. It was against the spirit of the journey, but that morning I couldn’t see a way around it.
Perhaps it was just my general mood that left me so pessimistic. The damp heat in Mumbai had overwhelmed me and I’d not felt well at all last night. Part of it was some kind of heat exhaustion, I’m sure, but part of it was an intense feeling of homesickness. Olly had told me that the girls were really missing me, especially Kinvara, and for the first time I wanted to jump on a plane and go home. Stupid I know: I was so lucky to be doing this in the first place, but there’s always a moment on any long trip when you feel like that and there is no point in denying your emotions. If you do, your feelings can fester, and in a team as tight as ours that would bring everyone down.
In Delhi a porter came for our bags, a cloth wrap tied round his head similar to what I’d seen the women use in Mumbai. With no trouble at all he hefted not only my heavy suitcase but Russ’s bag as well, and balancing them both he led us down the platform and over the footbridge to where tuk-tuks were waiting in the busy street. Suddenly I was energised; I’d never been in a tuk-tuk before and after the confinement of the train it was just what my flagging spirits needed.
The streets were crazy, even busier than Mumbai, and boy do the drivers love their horns - they were blaring out so often and so loudly you could barely hear yourself think. Mungo and I jumped in one tuk-tuk and Russ got in another and off we raced to the Imperial Hotel, first down narrow side streets and then a three-lane black top where our respective drivers really put the hammer down. The driving was nuts, and almost immediately we had to brake hard for a motorbike. The guy on the front was wearing a crash helmet but the little girl hanging on behind him wasn’t, which didn’t seem to make much sense. I remembered we would be riding Royal Enfields tomorrow. We really needed to get new crash helmets.