Great Indian Railway Journeys

Guided by his Bradshaw’s 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel, Michael Portillo embarks on a classic rail journey from Amritsar to Shimla. Along the way he helps to feed the thousands at the world’s largest free kitchen and travels the railway routes used by millions of migrants during Partition. He gives his trademark colourful wardrobe an Indian twist, and reaches the foothills of the Himalayas, where the epic Kalka to Shimla hill railway carries him to the former summer seat of the British rulers of the Raj. Published when the British Raj was at its height, Michael’s guide leads him to some of the key locations in India’s 20th century story, from the massacre in Amritsar in 1919 to the bloody events of Partition. Beginning in the Sikh holy city, Michael is dazzled by the beauty of the Golden Temple and awed by the scale of its langar - the world’s largest free kitchen. His route then takes him through the Punjab, India’s breadbasket. Michael samples traditional chapattis, has a colourful kurta made up in one of the Punjab’s biggest cloth markets, and can’t resist the foot-tapping rhythms of Punjabi bhangra dancing, made famous by Bollywood. Portillo’s journey also reveals surprises. He uncovers a pioneering women’s medical college in Ludhiana, before plunging into Chandigarh, designed by Le Corbusier as a modernist expression of India’s post-independence future. At Kalka, Michael glimpses the Himalayas for the first time and joins the 1903-built mountain railway for a stunning climb to Shimla. There, he relives the days when the crème de la crème of expatriate society went to socialise and rule – their exploits recorded by a young Rudyard Kipling.

With Bradshaw’s 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel in hand, Michael embarks on a stunning rail journey from the Thar Desert in Rajasthan to the Indian capital, taking in desert landscapes and dazzling historic palaces. From Jodhpur, Michael strikes out into the desert, taking a camel ride to a village where life has changed little in centuries, before embarking on the Jaipur-Agra-Delhi “Golden Triangle” tour – India’s must-do itinerary in 1913 as today. In Jaipur, Michael enjoys a Gin & Tonic in a lavish former palace before learning about the close ties between the rajahs of Jaipur and British royalty. He takes a polo masterclass from a maharaja, and enjoys a shower with a difference, courtesy of an elephant. Continuing east, Michael breaks his journey in drought-prone Bandikui, where he marvels at the extraordinary architecture of one of India’s largest and deepest step wells. In Agra, Michael first glimpses the Taj Mahal from a luxurious hotel room with a view. Heading for a closer look, he learns how this romantic monument built by a Mughal emperor was restored by a British viceroy at the time of his Bradshaw’s guide book. Having pre-ordered an on-train lunch using a mobile app, Michael joins the crowds in ‘unreserved class’ en route to Delhi, where he samples street food in Chandni Chowk before boarding the sparkling new metro towards New Delhi. Journey’s end is at New Delhi, built to house the rulers of the Raj after the capital moved from Calcutta in 1911 and designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens. But even as the crowds cheered King George V at the Delhi Durbar held the same year, anti-British sentiment was growing and soon after New Delhi was complete, India was granted independence.

Michael Portillo’s Bradshaw’s 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel leads him on a railway journey through the modern south Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, from the former princely state of Mysore to the first stronghold of the East India Company in Chennai, formerly Madras. In Mysuru, Michael pitches in at a game of street-cricket then smartens up to meet the Maharaja at the magnificent Mysore Palace. Michael’s Bradshaw’s tells him of an exceptional maharaja of the early 20th century, who sowed the seeds of the region’s prosperity, and Michael finds his legacy in the Carnatic music he patronised and the flourishing local silk industry. At sunset Michael joins selfie-stick wielding crowds back at the palace as they wait to capture it being illuminated by thousands of bulbs. An early morning yoga class is the perfect way to stretch out before boarding a train to Bengalaru. After a sticky encounter with a mango, he meets the entrepreneurs whose innovations are driving India’s hi-tech boom with inventions from mobile heart scanners to cooking apps. In a Bengalaru suburb, Whitefield, Michael hunts for the remains of a utopian Anglo-Indian settlement, before sampling fusion food, Bradshaw’s-style in the guise of Mulligatawny soup and spiced-up bread and butter pudding. Michael’s Bradshaw’s leads him east to Bangarapet where he explores the eerie ruins that are all that remains of what was once the world’s deepest gold mine. An air-conditioned super-fast double-decker express speeds Portillo to the sprawling coastal city of Chennai, where he hitches a ride on a Royal Enfield motorbike and visits the famous Madras Club for gentlemen to find out more about The East India Company’s beginnings in India.

On an epic railway journey from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh to Kolkata in West Bengal, Michael Portillo uses his Bradshaw’s 1913 Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel, published when the British Raj was fifty-five years old, to chart a course through India’s history from the days of The East India Company to the dawn of independence. In Lucknow, Michael tastes the famous local kebabs before seeking the truth about 1857 Siege of Lucknow, a key moment in the rebellion which precipitated the end of the East India Company’s grip on India and the start of direct British rule. After a classical kathak dance class, Michael boards the sleeper train towards Ghazipur, on the banks of the Ganges. Taking to the sacred waters by boat, he hears the murky story of The East India Company’s opium monopoly, then visits a modern-day opium factory making pharmaceuticals. Following the 1907-built Grand Chord Railway, Portillo stops off at Bodh Gaya, where he meditates on its Buddhist heritage. Further up the line is Chitteranjan locomotive works, and an extraordinary 980 metre-long locomotive workshop. In Kolkata, established as the capital of British India in the days of The East India Company, Michael battles the crowds at India’s busiest station and glimpses colonial Calcutta in the grand Great Eastern Hotel. A Kolkata tram carries him to the former home of pro-independence poet Rabindranath Tagore, the ‘Bard of Bengal’ and the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Finally, Michael takes up the thread of India’s long journey towards nationhood at a traditional textile workshop. He hears how a boycott of British cloth inspired Mahatma Gandhi and joins a fashion shoot to see how India’s home-grown textiles are celebrated today.