Doing our best in the Dark Underbelly of Gorakpur

'Tomorrow, train 4pm. 99% sure', were Vik's last words to me before I went to bed. I looked at his thin sallow face, his sharp moustache, his dark eyes. Could I trust him? I had parted with 8000 rps already and already two trains had failed to materialise. I had no choice.

I climbed the rubbish strewn stairs to the hotel. The night didn't really hide the dirt everywhere, the orange lights seemed to pick it up even more.

In the reception, the night manager was huddled up in his parker, only his hands were visible. I had seen him dozens of times in the last day or so, but so far not seen his face or heard him speak.

'You here all night?' A nod of the parker. 'You gonna sleep?' a shake. 'You ever take that off and wash?' a sort of Indian waggle, could be yes or no. I sighed and climbed the stairs.

On the roof garden the two waiters, stocky young men, were play sparring again. Karate punches and blocks, kung fu kicks and tackles, ducks and bobs and weaving. They did this whenever there was a break in service, and sometimes whilst they were in fact serving. Or until the fat sweating cook with a ladle came out and walloped them. They mock bowed at me as I passed, and then started feinting again.

My room was little not much to look at. A strip light gave off a harsh glare, showing up the dirt and grime on the tiles and the peeling and grimy paintwork. Two single beds pushed together, the mattress cover once white now stained. Two chairs, one broken, and a desk with all the drawers missing and the vinyl covering coming off.

Outside, the noise of the traffic was still loud. A never ending cacophony of horns. I huddled beneath the thin brown and course blanket, shivered and tried to sleep.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

BOOM BOOM BOOM

I started awake. It still before 6, Outside there was some demonstration or prayer gathering or an army marching passed banging their drums. I ignored it for a bit, then went outside to see if I could see what it was.

It was still dark, but even if it was light I don't think I could have seen anything. A thick fog had descended, making visibility all but a few feet. White street lights, car headlamps and the yellow bulbs of the stalls made scarcely more than little puddles of visibility. It was a cold and ghostly scene. I went back to bed to read for a couple of hours.

I couldn't decide what kind of novel this was a setting for. Partly it felt Dickensian in its grime and poverty and thick white smog everywhere.

The characters were perhaps too grotesque even for Dickens. Perhaps Mervyn Peake. As well as Vik the shady half crooked travel agent, the silent night manager and the fighting waiters, there was the bug eyed and perpetually gurning gangly barber, all elbows and knees and obscene grins, the cackling mad monkey boy who did the washing up for the restaurant downstairs, the drooling photocopy wallah with the wonky eye, and the creepy and perverted hotel porter who snorted and grunted to himself and kept patting me on the back.

But it also felt darker and less comic than that too. Even post apocalyptic. Everything was covered in soot from the open fires and the traffic pollution. Children washed cutlery in taps over open sewers, cows rooted through piles of rubbish looking for food, beggars in rags warmed themselves by piles of discarded plastic. Everyone was hooded in blankets or scarves, everyone seemed to have a look of desperation in their eyes.

The plot of trying to escape felt almost like Kafka, nightmarish and never ending episodes of frustration, confusion and helplessness.

I went down to VIk. 'I have upgraded your ticket!' he grinned at me. 'Super first class air con now. We need just a little extra bakshish to make sure you go up the waiting list',

I eyed him suspiciously. I had already handed over almost 8000 rps for tickets for me and the bike and various bribes. I narrowed my eyes, 'are you sure you are not ripping me off Vik. I'm getting a bit tired of this now'.

'No, No!' Vik assured me. 'Come, we must go and see the station master'. He scurried out from his office and started weaving through the traffic. I struggled to catch up.

'Listen,' Vik said. 'If he asks you anything, just t say that you have to get to Delhi for a flight tomorrow. Leave the rest to me'. He picked up his phone and started shouting into it like he was bullying or perhaps blackmailing someone.

I had actually started to like VIk. I didn't really trust him, although I had no choice, and he seemed to be half bent and operate in some very shady ways. But if he was a crook, then he was my crook, and he was working for me.

Trying to get a ticket for the train had become a bit like a swindle or a sting, full of bribes, baksheesh and blackmail.. I felt an adrenalin rush as we approached the station master and the showdown - I was actually starting to enjoy the process now.

The station master had big thick 1970's NHS specs on and a long scarf wrapped round his head. He grumbled as he signed bits of paper and filled in forms, al the while VIk was hectoring him. I didn't see any money change hands, but Viks hold over the man seemed secure.

'You got ticket man! told you' Vik came out waving a piece of paper. 'Now all we gotta do is get your bike on the train'.

'Is that not all sorted!?' I asked suddenly panicked that I might be here longer..

'Yeah, yeah sure, no problem. 99% no problem', he grinned at me. I would have to trust him again.

We went back to the shop. I had to drain the tank of petrol, probably, about 1000rps worth which silently disappeared, took the mirrors off and hid them in my baggage. We wheeled it over to the station. It got stuck in the cattle grid and had to be pulled out by three Rikshaw drivers. But I delivered it to the staiton master. He gave me a piece of paper. 'Don't losei it!' he warned me.

Then it was back to the hotel again, Final goodbyes to the 'friends; I had made, the silent manager, the fighting waiters and the creepy porter in the hotel, the bug eyed barber, the drooling internet wallah and the monkey boy in the sewage. And Vik.

'Hey Man, call just came through, YOur ticket is confirmed'. He grinned at me. 'Thats another 2000 you owe me for baksheesh. Have my card, recommend me'.

As I was leaving, one of his porters carrying my bags, he said 'You have been to Nepal? I am from there, a village called Ranikhet. It is twenty years I have been here,' he took his hat off and played with it, his eyes downcast. 'I work here to support my family back there. We are very poor. I don't see them much, but I think of them every day'. He looked suddenly very human and vulnerable, not the cocky and cocksure fixer making margins and cutting deals he had been a few moments before. My heart went out to him.

Spontaneously I hugged him. 'Thanks Vik. You've done me proud. If I come back, I will find you'. And I meant it too.

And so I write now from the first class sleeper compartment of a train heading to Delhi. I made it out. I didn't see but I am sure that Ambliss is tucked away somewhere in the hold.

I don't regret my time in the dark belly of Gorakpur. It was an interesting few days. Especially now I have left.

I also don't really resent paying so much for a ticket, in the grand scheme of things I can afford it. In the end, the money goes to people who need it. All the people I met here probably have a story like Vik, family they are trying to support, people they are trying to help, attempting to make the best of the hand that life has dealt them.

We are made by out experiences and situations, Some people are born in the privileged west and some in the harsh and sometimes ugly underbellies of the world. But all we can ever do is do the best we can with the hand that life has dealt us.