'Now you see,' said Mr Nath, 'with your own eyes why things are so backwards over here. But don't worry. There are always seats for VIPs.' He explained that compartments for VIPs and senior government officials were reserved on every train until two hours before departure time, in case someone of importance might wish to travel at the last minute. Apparently a waiting list was drawn up every day for each of India's 10,000 trains.

'Mr Nath,' I said, 'I'm not a VIP.'

'Don't be silly,' he said. He puffed his pipe and moved his eyes from the messenger to me. I think he saw my point because his next words were, 'Also we could try money.'

'Baksheesh,' I said. Mr Nath made a face.

Mr Sud said, 'Why don't you fly?'

'Planes make me throw up.'

'I think we've waited long enough,' said Mr Nath. 'We'll see the man in charge and explain the situation. Let me do the talking.'

We walked around the barrier to where the ticket manager sat, squinting irritably at a ledger. He did not look up. He said, 'Yes, what is it?' Mr Nath pointed his pipe stem at me and, with the pomposity Indians assume when they speak to each other in English, introduced me as a distinguished American writer who was getting a bad impression of Indian Railways.

'Wait a minute,' I said.

'It is imperative that we do our utmost to ensure – '

'Tourist?' said the ticket manager.

I said yes.

He snapped his fingers. 'Passport.'

I handed it over. He wrote a new application and dismissed us. The application went back to the messenger, who had wormed his way to the window.

'It's a priority matter,' said Mr Nath crossly. 'You are a tourist. You have come all this way, so you have priority. We want to give favourable impression. If I want to travel with my family – wife, small children, maybe my mother too – they say, "Oh, no, there is a tourist here. Priority matter!"' He grinned without pleasure. 'That is the situation. But you have your ticket – that's the important thing, isn't it?'

The elderly Indian in the compartment was sitting cross-legged on his berth reading a copy ofFilmfare. Seeing me enter, he took off his glasses, smiled, then returned to his magazine. I went to a large wooden cupboard and smacked it with my hand, trying to open it. I wanted to hang up my jacket. I got my fingers into the louvred front and tugged. The Indian took off his glasses again, and this time he closed the magazine.

'Please,' he said, 'you will break the air conditioner.'

'This is an air conditioner?' It was a tall box the height of the room, four feet wide, varnished, silent, and warm.

He nodded. 'It has been modernized. This carriage is fifty years old.'

'Nineteen twenty?'

'About that,' he said. 'The cooling system was very interesting then. Every compartment had its own unit. That is a unit. It worked very well.'

'I didn't realize there were air conditioners in the twenties,' I said.

'They used ice,' he said. He explained that blocks of ice were slipped into lockers under the floor – it was done from the outside so that the passengers' sleep would not be disturbed. Fans in the cupboard I had tried to open blew air over the ice and into the compartment. Every three hours or so the ice was renewed. (I imagined an Englishman snoring in his berth while at the platform of some outlying station Indians with bright eyes pushed cakes of ice into the lockers.) But the system had been converted: a refrigerating device had been installed under the blowers. Just as he finished speaking there was a whirr from behind the louvres and a loud and prolonged whoosh!

'When did they stop using ice?'

'About four years ago,' he said. He yawned. 'You will excuse me if I go to bed?'

The train started up, and the wood panelling of this old sleeping car groaned and creaked; the floor shuddered, the metal marauder-proof windows clattered in their frames, and the whooshing from the tall cupboard went on all night. The Kalka Mail was full of Bengalis, on their way to Simla for a festival, the Kali puja. Bengalis, whose complexion resembles that of the black goddess of destruction they worship, and who have the same sharp hook to their noses, have the misfortune to live at the opposite end of the country from the most favoured Kali temple. Kali is usually depicted wearing a necklace of human skulls, sticking her maroon tongue out, and trampling a human corpse. But the Bengalis were smiling sweetly all along the train, with their baskets of food and neatly woven garlands of flowers.

I was asleep when the train reached Kalka at dawn, but the elderly Indian obligingly woke me up. He was dressed and seated at the drop-leaf table, having a cup of tea and reading the Chandigarh Tribune. He poured his tea into the cup, blew on it, poured half a cup into the saucer, blew on it, and then, making a pedestal of his fingers, drank the tea from the saucer, lapping it like a cat.

'You will want to read this,' he said. 'Your vice president has resigned.'

He showed me the paper, and there was the glad news, sharing the front page with an item about a Mr Dikshit. It seemed a happy combination, Dikshit and Agnew, though I am sure Mr Dikshit's political life had been blameless. As for Agnew's, the Indian laughed derisively when I translated the amount he had extorted into rupees. Even the black-market rate turned him into a cut-price punk. The Indian was in stitches.

In Kalka two landscapes meet. There is nothing gradual in the change from plains to mountains: the Himalayas stand at the upper edge of the Indo-Gangetic plain; the rise is sudden and dramatic. The trains must conform to the severity of the change; two are required – one large roomy one for the ride to Kalka, and a small tough beast for the ascent to Simla. Kalka itself is a well-organized station at the end of the broad-gauge line. Between the Himalayas and Kalka is the cool hill station of Simla on a bright balding ridge. I had my choice of trains for the sixty-mile journey on the narrow gauge: the toy train or the rail car. The blue wooden carriages of the train were already packed with pilgrims – the Bengalis, nimble at boarding trains, had performed the Calcutta trick of diving headfirst through the train windows and had got the best seats. It was an urban skill, this somersault – a fire drill in reverse – and it left the more patient hill people a bit glassy-eyed. I decided to take the rail car. This was a white squarish machine, with the face of a Model-T Ford and the body of an old bus. It was mounted low on the narrow-gauge tracks and had the look of a battered limousine. But considering that it was built in 1925 (so the driver assured me), it was in wonderful shape.

I found the conductor. He wore a stained white uniform and a brown peaked cap that did not fit him. He was sorry to hear I wanted to take the rail car. He ran his thumb down his clipboard to mystify me and said, 'I am expecting another party.'

There were only three people in the rail car. I felt he was angling for baksheesh. I said, 'How many people can you fit in?'

'Twelve,' he said.

'How many seats have been booked?'

He hid his clipboard and turned away. He said, 'I am very sorry.'

'You are very helpful.'

'I am expecting another party.'

'If they show up, you let me know,' I said. 'In the meantime, I'm putting my bag inside.'

'It might get stolen,' he said brightly.

'Nothing could please me more.'

'Wanting breakfast, sahib?' said a little man with a push-broom.

I said yes, and within five minutes my breakfast was laid out on an unused ticket counter in the middle of the platform, tea, toast, jam, a cube of butter, and an omelette. The morning sunlight struck through the platform, warming me as I stood eating my breakfast. It was an unusual station for India: it was not crowded, there were no sleepers, no encampment of naked squatters, no cows. It was filled that early hour with the smell of damp grass and wild flowers. I buttered a thick slice of toast and ate it, but I couldn't finish all the breakfast. I left two slices of toast, the jam, and half the omelette uneaten, and I walked over to the rail car. When I looked back, I saw two ragged children reaching up to the counter and stuffing the remainder of my breakfast into their mouths.