Our last journey in India was on the Shatabdi train from Jaipur to Delhi. The Shatabdi is an express air-conditioned chair-car train. It was comfortable with good leg room. Food is provided, in fact they ply you with too much food - initial snacks tray (similar to an airline), then soup, main course and ice-cream. The 309km from Jaipur to Delhi takes about 5 hours, not bad at all for India.
We arrived in New Delhi at 11pm and walked down to the to the Hotel Shelton, Paharganj where we had left a pack full of Nepal trekking stuff. The room was a box, the matress was crap... It was better than the windowless box we had in Lucknow but the Shelton rates and the 2nd-worst place we stayed in India. I guess you don't get much in a budget hotel in a big city.
