Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Trichy was everything I hoped for: small, dusty, mostly rickshaws, rising from the flat outskirts a vast rock fort with a temple on top, and farther out an ancient, partially painted temple complex covering many acres. With this, cheap food and fruit juice, a small population, and no traffic to speak of: the sort of country town that had hardly changed in thirty—or perhaps a hundred—years. No outsourcing here, no talk of the new India, no careerists, no techies, no industrial parks or call centers, and the best hotel in the place was a great bargain.

I visited the temples, taking my time—it was 95 in the shade—and tried to make plans to go farther south. Rameswaram was only half a day from here.

"No ferry," I was told by Mr. Sundrum, a writer I met in Trichy who had recently been to Rameswaram. More mellifluous generalities. "Fighting has flared up."

I did not know it at the time, but this fighting was the start of a major offensive that had begun in the north of Sri Lanka by the group that called itself the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. At the end of it, more than four thousand people would be dead.

Sundrum said, "There are boats to Sri Lanka. The Tigers run them. They have their own transport system. They can take you across."

But this would mean finding someone in the Rameswaram immigration office to bribe, so I could get an exit stamp in my passport. And then crossing the Palk Strait, which was heavily patrolled because of the recent killings and bombings. On the other side, I would be safe in Tamil-occupied territory, but entering Sri Lankan territory (picking my way through the land mines), I'd have to seek out a Sri Lankan immigration officer and bribe him for a stamp, because I had entered the country illegally. I expected the crossing to be a lot of trouble, but the danger of being killed was something else.

"It wasn't like this before," I said.

"Fighting is there," Sundrum said. "Why don't you go to Chennai and look at the call centers and the new developments in IT? Trichy is nothing. Chennai is a leader."

"I've done that. I want to take the ferry."

Sundrum was rather proud of the fact that the Tigers were in control of the Palk Strait, that they ran a rudimentary ferry service. In their hearts all the Tamils I met wanted the Tigers to succeed, though they were a murderous lot who had blown up an Indian prime minister, assassinated Sri Lankans, displaced tens of thousands of people—Tamil and Sinhala alike—violated peace agreements, and raised hell.

For the time being I stayed in Trichy, caught up with my notes, visited the temples. I liked walking in the town, which was not populous but covered a broad area, on both banks of the Cauvery River, wide and waterless in this dry season. And even in this heat, being a pedestrian was enjoyable most of the time.

Temples attracted beggars. I had seen this my first day in India, in Amritsar—the grovelers at the Golden Temple. But it had been true since Turkey: wherever there was a mosque, there were beggars; they hung around churches, they lined up at temples. I had seen them again in Tbilisi, in Ashgabat, in Bokhara and Tashkent. They were a feature of Indian temples, grizzling for rupees, whining, sometimes demanding; everywhere I'd gone they'd thrown themselves at my feet or pawed my sleeve. I'd usually surrendered something. Indians were instinctive givers, especially the pilgrims and penitents, who built up good karma by giving.

Because of Trichy's ancient and well-preserved temples, many pilgrims visited, and consequently so did many beggars. The beseeching poor were part of the Indian scene: the lame and the halt, the blind, the limbless, with outstretched palms or begging bowls, sometimes displaying a limp or a drooling infant, an ashen-faced tot with the pox.

I did not harden my heart against them. I handed over some rupees and moved on, pondering the Indian miracle.

A smiling boy in a school uniform approached me.

"Good afternoon, sir. Where do you come from?"

I told him, and complimented him on his fluency.

"I speak English well because I study it at school," he said.

He was sturdy, about twelve or thirteen, his uniform spotless, though he wore no shoes. I asked him his name.

"My name is Murugam. India is my country."

I thanked him and walked towards the temple gate.

"Give me ten rupees," he said.

"Not today."

"Buy me a Coca-Cola."

"Sorry."

"All right, give me five rupees."

"Tell me why."

"I come from a big family. Give me one rupee. Give me something. Give me your ball pen."

He said that because I was writing in my small notebook: Boy. Uniform. Murugam.

As I walked away he began hissing curses at me, and he became loudly abusive when he saw me give some money to a crippled old woman who lay in a heap with her hand extended, palm upward.