Up at 4.45am to catch the train to Agra. Slipped out of the house as dawn was breaking into the heat of Delhi to meet our faithful driver waiting beside the car. People still sleeping on the streets as we make our way through the relatively light traffic to the railway station.
Our coach number and seat numbers are on the ticket and so we enter this luxurious air conditioned carriage. As it pulls smoothly out of the station we are presented with complimentary copies of the "Times of India" , a sealed bottle of cold water and tea and biscuits. The journey takes just under two hours on this express train.
As we rush smoothly in air conditioned luxury through rural India I can see through the double glazing, my fellow human beings living in mud huts, grass shelters and crumbling brick slums. Everyone is barefoot, many of the children are half naked, women are cooking breakfast on open fires and carrying water, people brushing their teeth, and an old man stripped to a loincloth is washing himself at a well. Everyone, both men and women are urinating and defecating among the bushes as we rush past, because there is simply no where else to go.

I feel guilty about my enormous wealth, status and privilege and ashamed of myself for not feeling outraged! A waiter brings me a complimentary cooked breakfast. It tastes like ashes in my mouth!