IMAGES: ALAMY; GETTY
A
t the beginning of my train ride from
New Delhi to Kalka all I see of
Professor JPS Sawhney is the tip of
a turban and an arm shooting out to a cup of
tea. This is because he’s obscured by his
enormous neighbour, Mr Rakesh Wason,
a “wholesaler of ladies’ fashion” from
Chandigarh, who is blessed with a prodigious
belly wrapped in a tent-like lime-green shirt.
It’s only a er Mr Wason and I have been
talking for a while about the state of the
Indian economy (“a bit up-down, up-down”),
cricket, his love of Virgin Trains’ fi rst-class
service in the UK, and his fondness for
Madame Tussauds (“The Queen, Margaret
Thatcher, Obama, Benazir Bhutto, Indira
Ghandi: very good!”), that the Professor
makes himself known.
The turban beyond Mr Wason’s belly pokes
outwards, like a hermit crab emerging from
a slumber. It’s attached to the head of a thin,
bearded man with a broad smile. He gives me
his card. He’s a cardiologist from Delhi, and,
like Mr Wason, he’s a rail enthusiast.
“Trains!” he says, leaning forward.
“Switzerland has the best trains. Stockholm
to Oslo: this was also a very good experience.
Picturesque, beautiful place. US: trains are
not very good; the quality is poor. In India,
there is the Palace on Wheels, you know.”
Professor Sawhney and Mr Wason say that
they always travel fi rst class when they can
on Indian trains, which is what we’re taking
to Kalka. “I was going to fl y this time, but
there were no seats,” says Professor Sawhney.
“So I called a patient at the Ministry of
Railways. I was then confi rmed a ticket.”
Mr Wason had been in a similar situation:
“I had to pay double. Today is my wife’s
birthday, so I had to go urgently.”
Professor Sawhney then surprises me:
“The Dalai Lama is my patient,” he says.Shimla, my destination a er Kalka, is close
to Dharamshala, where the Dalai Lama lives
in exile from Tibet, and I’m planning to see
the mountaintop town.
“I was with him for six days as he had a
problem: one of his arteries was blocked,” the
Professor says. “It was a wonderful experience.
He gave me a book with his autograph.”
The Professor had provided the Dalai
Lama with advice on his diet, including a
recommendation to eat more bananas, with
which the spiritual leader was particularly
taken. “We had many talks about his
teachings — truthfulness, simplicity,
honesty, all those things.”
He pauses and retreats behind Mr Wason’s
belly for a sip of tea as though to contemplate
what the Dalai Lama had to say.
A er a few moments, Professor Sawhney
returns and talk moves on to health matters.
“Heart disease is the biggest killer of
mankind. For the Indian population, the big
problem is the lack of exercise. And we are
overeating, like the Americans.” WORDS BY TOM CHESSHYRE
INDIA
BRIEF
ENCOUNTER
Tom has travelled on
assignment to almost 100
countries for The Times,
for which he writes a
weekly hotel column and
oversees ski coverage.
He has authored six
travel books, the latest
of which is Ticket to
Ride: Around the World
on 49 Unusual Train
Journeys, published by
Summersdale.
@tchesshyreMr Wason keeps quiet during this
exchange — he really is extremely large.
“We can live o about one quarter of what
we eat. We can eat milk, meat and eggs but
also take lots of fruit, vegetables and nuts:
almonds, walnuts, cashew, pistachio. Soya
milk, it’s good. And don’t use too much oil
when cooking food.”
Professor Sawhney gives me the telephone
number of the Dalai Lama’s main doctor,
whom he believes will be able to arrange an
audience with the spiritual leader (I’m
intending to travel by vehicle from Shimla to
Dharamshala). Then Professor Sawhney
takes my pulse using a device attached to his
mobile phone. I’m running at 71 beats a
minute. He makes another calculation,
murmurs and makes a clicking sound.
“No problems for you. No problems,” he says
and, satisfi ed that I’m not about to drop dead,
retreats once more behind his neighbour.
I appear to have been given the all-clear by
the Dalai Lama’s cardiologist. You don’t get
that on the 8:23 from Reading.Passengers travelling on
the Kalka-Shimla railwayNovember 2016 87TRAVELLERS’ TALES