C1 Advanced (CAE) - Reading Multiple Choice 5

The Train From Karachi

We left Karachi after an hour's wait. The reason for the delay was never explained. It never was. The station master, a figure of magnificent indifference in a uniform that suggested intimate acquaintance with several decades of railway dust, consulted his ledger with the kind of absorption usually reserved for ancient manuscripts, whilst steadfastly avoiding any eye contact with the assembled passengers.

The third-class compartment, which we had selected with the misguided notion that it might prove more authentically subcontinental than the first, proved to be authentically subcontinental to a degree that even my most masochistic travel instincts hadn't quite prepared for. A family of seventeen - I counted them twice - occupied the space theoretically allocated for eight, whilst managing to create room for three chickens, a collection of mysterious bundles, and what appeared to be most of their household effects.

The grandmother of this remarkable group, displaying the sort of hospitality that makes one's British reserve wilt faster than one's collar, insisted on sharing their breakfast. Having spent thirty years avoiding uncooked vegetables in the East with the same dedication that other men avoid mortal sin, I found myself accepting a chapati with dal. The grandmother watched my tentative consumption with the air of a chemistry teacher observing a particularly promising experiment.

At some point - my watch had long since given up any pretence of relevance to the situation - we ground to a halt in a landscape that suggested considerable indifference to human activity. No station, no signal box, not even the usual collection of chai wallahs that materialise at every conceivable stopping point. Just heat, dust, and the distant silhouette of what might have been a camel but was more likely a peculiarly shaped bush.

A young man in a Western suit, complete with tie (which in this climate seemed an act of either remarkable courage or remarkable foolishness), consulted his watch with the kind of desperate optimism I recognised from my own early days of subcontinental rail travel. He had yet to learn that time here operated on principles that would have fascinated Einstein, had Einstein ever attempted to catch the 10:15 to Lahore.

The heat continued its remorseless assault. My fellow passengers had achieved that state of resigned immobility that comes from intimate familiarity with the vagaries of Pakistan Railways, while I attempted to maintain some semblance of British composure by consulting my guidebook, which offered the helpful advice that delays were "not uncommon" - a masterpiece of understatement that ranked alongside "Moscow winters can be brisk" or "the Sahara tends towards the warm."

When movement finally resumed, it did so without warning or ceremony, much like its cessation. The family opposite rearranged themselves with practiced efficiency into a new configuration that seemed to defy several laws of physics. The chicken, which had been eyeing my guidebook with unsettling intensity, returned to its contemplation of the middle distance.

A vendor appeared at the window selling tea in small clay cups, performing the sort of miraculous materialisation that would have made a stage magician weep with envy. The tea, whose sugar content would have alarmed any dental professional within a hundred miles, proved surprisingly restorative. I found myself thinking of British Rail's tepid offerings in plastic cups, and felt a sudden, unexpected surge of appreciation for this chaotic, inefficient, utterly human way of doing things.

As evening approached, bringing with it the kind of sunset that makes one forgive all manner of infrastructural shortcomings, I realised that my handkerchief had evolved from a simple nose-wiping implement to a multi-purpose tool serving as fan, fly-swatter, and emergency signal flag. The grandmother caught my eye and smiled, saying something that needed no translation: this was Pakistan, this was its railway, and one either accepted it or went mad. I had long since chosen acceptance.