Articles published in April, 2025
[We are guests at the Monobarie Tea Estate after crossing the Bramaputra.]
At a spice market
Monday 7th February
Lazy day, although I get all my addresses transcribed into a small book indexed by country.
The evening is reserved for a cultural program in aid of local high school. Don’t give it much thought and don’t wear much clothing. Arrive to find a big tent like a circus. Gets very cold.
At first, Bihu dances, with little character sketches in them. Another dance from Madya Pradesh. Then main event begins.
[A proper theatrical stage has been set up under the tent.]
Turns out to be an endless melodrama, full of characters, entwined in tales of disaster and degradation. A mother of an illegitimate son has been deserted by her lover. Her brother proposes a new marriage for her, but first she must get rid of her son. He sends the boy off for adoption and finds her a rich Brahmin husband. When her lover turns up he’s told the son has died and she has remarried. He goes off in despair. 25 years pass. The son appears, broke and hungry. A painter/beggar doesn’t help him. Then his father appears as a violinist/beggar. He also can’t help him. His name is “Tettari.” Then a pock-marked villain enrolls the son in a gang. The painter has a daughter. The original brother has become wealthy (presumably off his brother in law) and is a publisher. He has designs on the daughter. She spurns him, but necessity forces her onto the street with her father, selling fake charity tickets. The Brahmin family walks by, and the son buys a charity ticket. Previously he refused to share their picnic with Tettari when he was starving, although the mother wanted to (blood tells). Now the gang robs the girl and father, but Tettari forces them to return the money, and a police inspector gets involved. The old brother seduces the daughter and corrupts her. (Tettari goes over to the police.) after her father has been beaten up while robbing. The Brahmin overhears his wife confessing to the violinist that they have a son, etc, etc.
It’s a soap opera, comic strip acted out on a stage. The rape or seduction of Miranda by the rich and unscrupulous brother was particularly drawn out and harrowing, – lots of mirthless laughter as he closes in on his prey. English words and titles are used by characters who have sold their souls to acquire status and power, particularly by the acolytes of the gang leader, the brother, the inspector. I thought that something like this would be a great success on the London stage, but the cast would be huge.
The characters [actors] were shivering round a small fire in the grounds between appearances. They had mattresses laid out in classrooms, and were giving a series of three nights, different shows each time. They charged 500 rupees each night. None of them, it seemed, spoke any English.
I was fascinated to be so close to a lost tradition of the theatre, but it was freezing. Hard to keep my mind awake, and Carol was raising static about the cold, and how extraordinary it was that Roy and the others didn’t seem to have any concern for the comfort of others. It became clear that none of the plantation people had any idea of what we were in for.
Tuesday, 8th
Another languid day, but a burst of unnecessary excitement in the middle when I suddenly get it into my head that the election is on Feb. 16th and I ought to get my piece in now.
[I had been planning an article about the election for the Sunday Times.]
Eventually declare my folly to Roy, and he tells me it’s March 16th, so no hurry. Feel foolish, but relieved.
There’s a party in the evening to welcome the bride of one of Roy’s assistants.
Notable guests: Indian manager with navy club blazer inscribed DFC with wings [RAF Distinguished Flying Cross] and the most outrageously affected ‘Old Boys’ accent I ever heard [and I’ve heard a lot]. If he appeared alone on the Palladium stage, he’d be a winner. His manner was appropriately unpleasant.
His wife, articulate and intelligent, confesses she hates him, and cultivates her sensibilities in defiance. She was able to relieve herself by talking to me about literature – very fast for a while. I was glad to help, but unable to say much that was worthwhile.
A young assistant, previously in hotels, a bit travelled, came on full spate about the reactionary policies of the planters. “As Lenin once said, ‘Politics is the opium of the people’.” [Rubbish! Confusing Lenin with Marx and politics with religion.]
At lunchtime, one of the fields nearby burst into flame. The Punjabi assistant with the dazzling smile supervises the attempt to beat it out with green branches. Still it spreads. The citronella crop is ruined. He says it was set deliberately by a worker who wanted to save work clearing the land.
Wednesday, 9th
Lunchtime departure to Tezpur.
Roy Boswell receives call to visit local CID and returns happy that they have ‘no objection’ to his permit. [There are two Roys – Eastment and Boswell.]
Boswell’s a fine old gent. Was manager of the same garden as the blazered buffoon. In England his wife died, and he wants to retire in Assam. Has ‘adopted’ an Indian family and plans to live with them, buy some land and pass it on to them. There is a local tradition for this kind of thing. A surveyor in Tezpur did the same – Aitken Bros.
More great rivers to cross, then Tezpur and the DC’s office. We meet the Additional Deputy Commissioner. Mr Buyan, who turns out to be a sweet man. Takes us home for a big tea and fixes us up in the Agricultural Bungalow.
He tells us more about how the joint family system works and stresses the power of the mother to enforce moral obligations. If one of her sons fails in his duty (i.e. to give financial help to a needier relative) she will refuse to visit him and ostentatiously stay at another place nearby. The news of this action will travel rapidly between the wives at the bazaar, and he will be disgraced. Thus, the function of gossip to enforce conformity.
Thursday, 10th
Ride around Tezpur – to a hill with ruins of Krishna temples (2000 years old.) Later move into Circuit house, for the hell of it. Conveniences not much better than bungalow – and beds embarrassingly creaky. Costs so little – 2 or 3 rupees. Roy’s friend, the magistrate, has been living there six months, and is in trouble because she left Tezpur for his party without the DC’s permission. Now threatened with eviction. Fines for overstaying at Circuit House or DAK are draconian – but I doubt whether they are enforced.
Meet the two Roys later, at club. We’re invited to breakfast at home of a cinema owner. His son graduated at Milwaukee Economics. Now works in business.
Friday, 11th February
[After breakfast we went on to Gauhati. It was time for me to take Carol to Dawki on the Bangladeshi border, and leave her as we had agreed, but it was a very painful parting. The road to Dawki from Shillong, over a rolling landscape of tea estates, was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. There was a short mountainous section.]
Small party of ragged men shouting and waving red flag, met on way down from Shillong. Was it a religious procession? Then two sections of cement pipe crammed with women, waving and also shouting at 500 syllables a second.
Then the first blast from the rock face.
[The side of the mountain slid down, but we were unhurt.]
Next week is my birthday and there will be parties. I’m sorry you can’t come. I’ll try to squeeze another episode in but forgive me, please, if I don’t. Cheers to all.
An Ahom castle in Assam
[We are on our way to Dibrugarh, upriver in Assam, expecting to spend the night in a DAK bungalow, one of the many rest houses built for travellers in British India. We already had invitations for the following days to visit first the oil town at Duliajan, about 50 kms East of Dibrugarh, and then on to a British tea estate at Margherita another 50kms or so further East, owned by Jimmy and Jean Beven. Due, no doubt, to our unusual means of transport and our personal stories, we were invited everywhere.]
We got to DAK at 5.30, expecting half-hours peace. Almost immediately the two guardsmen from the Tea Estate appeared: one in a modern stock-broker’s pin-striped suit, the other in lighter gear. I had to send them off, and used Carol’s request for aspirin as grounds to plead for mercy on health grounds. They were very pleasant, and promised the jeep for later, and left. Carol tore into me for using her health as an excuse – not unreasonably – and then went on about it ¬– unreasonably, while I retained my annoyance at not being free to simply stop and sit and reflect after such a lovely day. But we broke it down in time, and when Dilip arrived we were both happy.
Party was chiefly interesting for: A wealth of pretty young Indian wives; Sikh’s talk about rice crops in Punjab, recently bad, and the advances of Haryana; His wife’s lost ambition to be a journalist.
Monday, January 31st
From Dibrughar to Duliajan. First to Dilip, then to Special Branch. [We were supposed to check in everywhere.] Then to Agrawallah, then finally on the road out from the “overbridge” cross-roads, past Triplex drycleaners and the Khodi shop, out along the railway line, 30 miles of quite good road.
Duliajan is a company town, bult by private British interests for Assam Oil Co. Now of course nationalised.
75,000 gals per hour through treating plant.
75 million tons crude per annum to Gauhati through 16inch pipe.
Crude from well to collecting stations where water and gas are separated off. (Flare of gas burning; only 40 % is used by fertiliser plant and local energy needs) Then to tank farm, then to treating plant where heated to 95 degrees C. and cooled. This breaks up the crystalline structure of the waxes (This crude heavy in wax} to enable it to be pumped in winter, 1100 kms to Bihar. (Some refined in Gauhati. Third refinery planned in Assam.)
Drilling well, mud is pumped from plant 10 miles or more away. Also gas and water. Drill pipes of 30’ lengths drawn up in 90’ segments. 90 seconds to pull up each segment. Drill bit may be changed every 80 ft or so. 1400 hp to turn bit. 700 hp to pump mud. New rig costs India $1,500,00. Rig helper gets about 450 rps per month, plus bonus free home and services = 700 rps = $18 per week.
Waste gases used to fire the company crematorium.
[We went on from Duliajan to Margherita where we stayed several days in great comfort.]
Margherita Tea Estate. Jimmy and Jean Beven. 473 hectares. Plants per hectare 11,000 to 15,000.
Tea is one unique species. Varieties, by selection, called clones. 30 altogether. Margherita has 20 or so different ones, by curious names like TV-2 or Margherita 1.
Beven makes tea to customer requirements, as opposed to producing for a general standard and leaving the selection to buyers at auction. Now almost none is sold through auction. Europe and America are a growing market for expensive teas.
Process; Tea plants plucked weekly, two leaves and a bud. Produce 14 to35 quintals of made tea per hectare per annum. Quintal = 100 kgs. His plants yield in 2 to 3 years. Can live for 100 years or more. Mulch and paraquat (herbicide). Guatemala grass when land is fallow (deep rooted). Principal pests, red spider, green fly, and fungus.
Leaves are dried of 30% of their weight by blowers. Then two methods. CTC – cut, turn, and curl – by pronged rollers. Or Orthodox, rolled between revolving discs. First gives a more “liquory” tea. i.e Thick Body – tea “creams out.” When left standing it becomes opaque. Second gives lighter, more aromatic tea. Then laid out on aluminium sheets about half inch deep for 30 to 45 minutes to complete “fermentation” before being dried and packed. Best chests of mango wood, and another wood from Andoman islands.
Plantation Act of 1953 (?) requires brick houses, free firewood, 2 weeks holiday, transport home at certain intervals, minimum 8% bonus (has been as high as 20%) recently profits were about 20%.
The day with R.K.Barua [An oil man.] An evening party
Jimmy and Jean Beven get us an elaborate picnic lunch and we set off to follow various tracks to the “inner line.” Border of Arunachal Pradesh, to find elephants working lumber. On way, stop to take pictures under the road sign for the Stillwell Road, to Chunking, Yunming, Wanting, etc. Barua pulls up. Is very excited by idea of taking us in his jeep to see various things. The wildcat rig, down to 17,000 feet, pipes stuck by extreme pressure forces them against side. Schlumberger lowers explosive charges to free joints.
Pat O’Leary from Burma. The all-denomination temple, recreation rooms. R.K’s constant emphasis on the vulnerability of his installations (explosives, etc) and how much he relies on the goodwill of the people around (Singpho tribes – light grey cloaks, loin cloths, bows & arrows, Tibetan settlement. The ropeway, for monsoon, across the Noa Diking, upstream from Mige.
Lots of logging – Hollock, Hollong, Simal and the ironwood (Nurah?).
February 6th
Crossing the Brahmaputra. DAK bunglow. One bottle of beer and a half of whisky left from Monday night before. Call Sengupta to say goodbye. Then to SB office, back to police station – very fluent policeman in charge – back to SB. Ferry on unmarked, sandy road. On to the “Joya”– tea hut owner in long dhoti gives us boiled egg and tea. Great calm expanse of river, clumps of foliage sailing downstream, like offerings. Pan boy selling betel on board. Ferry costs 7.50 for bike and rider. Soldiers and peasants all with woolen scarves wrapped round heads and chins like toothache sufferers. Large port of Dibrugarh was swept away by erosion in a recent monsoon (’73?) so new business is building in Tinsukia.
On the crossing, waves of sadness engulf me. They seem to rise out of the water itself, since I have no particular reason for sadness or melancholy. As I contemplate it, I feel a great tide of feeling submerged beneath the daily details of life, but ebbing and flowing powerfully according to its own purposes. At times, no doubt, I travel with this current, at other times against it, and probably I have no real conception of its meaning or existence.
My observations and sensations of “reality” must be so conditioned by this fundamental stream of emotion that they would be seen as all works of the imagination. And I’m led to think that a true description of this journey should also be entitled Imaginary. This has some relevance to another recent series of ideas which led me to see the life of the emotion as a “looking glass” image of the physical world, and my hypothesis as “The Looking-glass Principle.”
We are pulsing through this grey flatness of water between banks of sand that crumble and fall before our eyes. The journey has lost its beginning and offers no end and we might be floating along the Styx for all I know.
The ferry arrives on a forlorn bank of the river, wind blowing sand through the rushes and grasses. Long dusty road leads out. We stop and savour the silence for a while. See solitary boatmen out on the river which is now choppy in the breeze. Where we meet the main road an elderly man entertains us with lusty laughter and gestures while giving incomprehensible directions to Demraji and N.Lakimpur. Countryside on this north bank is richer looking and emptier. Great variety of tribal faces pass on the road.
Many men with bows and arrows are thrashing about in a marsh of water chestnuts trying to start up some creature they’re hunting. At one point a small black thing darts out and speeds across the vegetation to disappear again. They follow with howls but lose it. One of them looses off a couple of arrows at an egret – but without much conviction. His string seems rather loose. The arrow’s path very curved. Meanwhile two women work steadily bent over in the mud harvesting chestnuts, each with a basket slung at her hip.
The feeling is that if we stopped here we might be drawn in and able to stay, but we both need rest from experience, and time to think. After 80 miles we get to Lakhimpur – 2.30 pm and get a good lunch at Joya hotel.
[The Bevens have given us introductions to another Tea Estate.]
Then another 80 miles to Monabarie T.E, which seems to recede as we approach. Well after dark we turn into the garden and at last find Roy Eastment’s bungalow. He’s there alone and fixes us up. We eat and drink and play music. Soon we’re dancing to Hindu film music and having great fun.
Monday January 24th
We planned to leave and had breakfast (duck egg omelette). Then Carol began to feel really sick. She notes that several times, when it’s time to move on, she’s got ill and she suggests it’s her homing instinct.
We decide to stay another day. People are most solicitous. Vijay Vikram Singh in particular. He also remembers my suggestion of the previous night that a museum with information about the animals would help the park. Other remarks of mine have less success. However!!!
C in bed most of the day. We assume it has to do with the tetracycline course and wait for it to right itself. Evening I go back to the bar. This time to drink rum with the DFO [District Forestry Officer] a Kachari, and three Bengali auditors working with him. They ask me many questions about the journey.
The Bengalis volunteer to go to out of the way places, and have spent much time among the hill tribes in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, etc. Their long absences from home bring the conversation round to the “joint family system” – in which all sons retain a financial interest in supporting the home, according to their incomes, and the wives remain to look after parents, etc.
One of them asks, very seriously, whether I prefer their system or the Western unit of two. I explain my feelings about the need to reestablish contact between our generations, and lead on to the demands of a technological society, specialisation, sacrifice of emotional interdependence and feeling, and suggest that these deficiencies are reflected in national policies and lead to such disasters as Viet Nam. It seemed like a stirring speech at the time – and included an apologia for drop-outs in Western universities.
A fourth Indian, an engineer attached to ITDC was there briefly. He was a foppish insecure young man. Revealed that his father had sent him to boarding school at the age of four. He strove to say something significant and always failed. I appreciate, in retrospect, his bewilderment. He knows he’s quite bright, but he always misses the mark because his own experience is too distorting. Echo of myself in the Express pub. [The Daily Express, in London, as a young man.]
People dealt more charitably with me then than I did with him!!!
An open cast coal mine near Dibrughar. Women seemed to do most of the work. They brought the coal to the train in baskets on their heads.
You wouldn’t think coal and saris go well together.
Tuesday 25th
Leave for Gologhat. On the way, stop for tea with DFO and Bengalis. Carol enjoys them, especially the DFO, who talks about census-taking in the park. They count animal droppings over a sample area. Also try to estimate what population the park can hold. Grazing habits. Snakes. Shows real affection for animals. Spent 11 months at Michigan State. Tells story of American Indian who asks him where he was from.
“I’m Indian.”
“Yes, but what part of the US are you from?”
Says their appearances were very similar.
On to Gologhat.
At Gologhat College: Dr M.K. Saika.
“There is a man in hospital now who fought with a tiger. He saw the tiger attacking a woman and he went to help. He had the long knife that the people carry. He struggled with it and killed it. He was badly mauled. The woman was already dead. He attacked the tiger without hesitation. Our people are like that. They are very warlike.”
Thursday 27th, to Dibrugarh
Changed razor blade. This one has lasted 4 months. i.e. 16 weeks of daily use.
Notes at random: [Watching women working in paddy fields]
Must be unpleasant to stand in mud, cold, bug ridden, all day. The colourful saris make the paddy scene seem cheerful. But then people laugh and smile even in prison.
History of advertising/promotion contests, etc. Like Ovaltineys. And the part they played in perverting society.
What raises a village beyond the sum of its parts?
Recollections of Chowdrey, the geologist:
Lead to the notion that all those experts who advise governments of developing nations on vital policy decisions may in a sense have “gone underground.” If they were to reveal their strategies they would become political targets of the first order, since their tasks usually involve sacrificing the prospects, if not the lives, of large sections of the community. (i.e. Health, Housing, slum rehab. location of Industry, exploitation of resources, fiscal policies, etc.)
In Tezpur:
Indian hospitality requires the guest to be an exhausted and starving cretin.
You may ask for anything, but God help you if you ask for nothing.
Everybody in India assumes that as long as you’ve got a chair to sit in, all other ambitions can be postponed indefinitely.
“Please sit,” is the most common phrase, after “You are from?”
Sunday 30th
Visiting Syam and Ahom villages with Dr. Barua and wife. 35 miles or so into the country.
Syam or Thai-speaking people from Shān province of Burma came to Nagaland in 1600 to follow the Ahom kings (who had come 200 years previously.) They called their new settlement “The Golden Place.” Later they drifted further into Assam.
This village was only three and a half miles from the border with Nagaland. It felt quite definitely more remote and rural than other villages and we’d left traffic a long way behind. We went first to the doctor’s house – a retired surgeon, old Thai face with a few black and crooked teeth, a son who seemed a shade wrong, and family.
Doctor is head man – has mementoes of visits to various Buddhist conferences. Also literature. Then we strolled through the village, gathering a few more people as we went.
Saw looms under houses, between stilts, and rice mills. Admired the spatial proportions of interiors, gardens, and relationships between plots. Also abundance of vegetables, banana, betel palms – sat in a teacher’s house for a while and asked questions about village. They claim there is never violence, undue drunkenness, quarrels between families. All is peaceful.
Why? They don’t know. Later, after lunch at doctor’s asked him the same question. He doesn’t know either. Welcomes education, considers the people backward, yet cannot say how education can help village life, but supposes instead that the recipients will be dissatisfied and move to town. Yet he says he has no fears for the future of the village.
Ahom village: Two elderly brothers and younger family. Spinning in yard, drying out rice, pictures of mulga silk on spindles. The “Danger” notice to frighten evil spirits from the sacred coconut tree.
Even more immaculate house and yard. Lovely sweets and tea in brass goblets. Kitchen is up a ladder, on first floor. Smoky place, says C, and dark. Daughter, who took away the tea things, has a B.A [University degree] Two brothers very neat, light bodies, with nut-like heads, button eyes. Both tied up in the red & white cotton cloths round their waists but with a plain dhoti below. They look strong, monkey-like agility. They go to market once a week, would not like people to come and sell in the village, let alone see permanent bazaar. They value the quiet.
Vice-chancellor, later, on return: Great expansive chuckles. “So now you see how backward our people are.”
We protest that on the contrary we were most impressed. He didn’t even give us a chance to finish the sentence, before assuming we must be joking, and burst into laughter again, repeating the same idiotic clichés.
By now I was gazing into his blue-pebble lenses with the first tender shoots of loathing springing up in my heart. Happily, Barua now put in a diplomatic word, in Assamese.
“Well,” said the VC “even if our people are poor, they are at any rate quite jolly.”
He waved at the untidy expanse of fallow ground all about us, with the weather-stained embryo of the physics building poking its rusty reinforcing iron into the sunset.
“We are growing fast now, and soon this will all be buildings. This chemistry building is coming up. It may all be empty now but . . . . “ He struggled a moment, and I added “Master plan is there.”
‘Yes, yes,” he said. It made a perfect epilogue to a perfect day.
Vinegar Joe’s famous World War II road to Burma
Still stuck in Gauhati doing battle with the police and the bureaucracy.
An Ahom temple in Assam. The Ahom, a Thai tribe, established a late mediaeval kingdom in the Brahmaputra valley which lasted six hundred years until 1826
January 18th
On Tuesday morning we sought out the District Commissioner. who expressed impatience with red tape and authorised us to make an application which I wrote out in his office, very comprehensively. So far so good. All he needed he said was a note from the police that they had no objection – but soon we were back with Das, and Goswamy (his sidekick) and they felt unable to make a decision. Nor could their boss be found. At last, after lunch, I returned to the Special Branch office where they said once again that the District Commissioner could not issue these permits, and we would have to go to Dispur. More in interest than expectation I pursued the DC. again, found him at his bungalow about to have lunch. 45 minutes later we were both back there with our application and the Supt.’s notes. The DC was evidently bewildered to find his path blocked but had the sense to tell us to go to Dispur after all. He would telephone there on our behalf. Finally then, after further persuasion we were seen by the secretary of the passport office.
Here was a most polished young man behind a large desk.
“This is a restricted area,” he explained, “and the words do, after all, have a meaning. They mean that foreigners are not allowed here, with certain exceptions. You may be the exceptions,” and he beamed at us.
“We have to consider each case on its merits. We may have reasons for refusing permission to some individuals and not to others. And of course we will not tell you what our reasons are.”
Two Germans were there, seeking permits for Derange only.
With his fingertips together before a conspiratorial smile, he said “Now this I’m afraid, may be rather difficult.“
In exasperation the German woman said, ”I’m sorry, I can’t deal with this ‘Maybe -Perhaps – It will be difficult.’ Just tell us please whether it will be possible . . . or impossible.”
His smile became even more egregious.
“Let me put it then, that in the case of Derange it will prove actually to be . . . impossible.”
He could hardly utter the word ¬ but seemed pleased to have got it out. Nevertheless, behind the extreme unctuousness, he delivered a plain message. All our complaints and inconveniences were nothing to him. They would deal with us as they pleased, regardless of PR considerations, or the tourist trade.
It was a breath of fresh air, though a depressing prospect. Assam had become most desirable to us both, and with the difficulties grew our ambitions. He invited us to call him next morning for news about our applications.
On our way back to town we stopped at the Lucas office and fell on our feet. Happily received by the resident manager, Sanithanan, a Tamil Brahmin, we also met shortly afterwards Raj Pande, the Calcutta boss on a tour of Assam. He was most friendly. Flattered us both with his attention. Invited us to eat with him at the Bellevue (we had just thought of going there for a beer.)
We went back to the lodge first to let Carol change. Snow White hovered there anxiously. He knew that our permits had expired. I dealt with it in an offhand manner, but I knew that if the Passport Office didn’t approve at least our stay in Gauhati, we’d be in more trouble next day.
The evening with Pande went very well. He is charming, intelligent and capable of listening. Spent seven years in Birmingham, where he took an external degree. Then Amritsar, Delhi and Calcutta (also Jaipur I think). Gave a spirited description of four levels of Indian business. He says they are efficient at the lowest and highest levels. Not in between. (The man who employs apprentices and pays only in roti and dahl, can produce accurate facsimiles of auto parts at a fraction of the price. If an armature breaks down, say, he will say give it back and take another, and he can be relied on to do this. NOT fly-by-night.)
Next day, Wednesday, I’m told our permits will be ready in the afternoon for some of the places we wanted. Jubilation. At two thirty we get them. Stop for chat with Sanithanan. Then very late go to university on spec and find Dr. B.M.Das just leaving. He invites us to visit his home at 6.30. We visit Karmak (?) temple on hill overlooking the river. Good view. A Hindu protests that we should be allowed into the temple. Apologises for the custodians of his faith. “God is the same everywhere.”
The visit to Das is an overwhelming success. [He gave us introductions and advice on places to visit and what to look for.]
Back at the Lodge – Snow White is satisfied. We are ready to penetrate Assam.
Thursday, 20th January
A slow and cumbersome start of packing, marketing, post office, bank. Tried to draw a bank-draft but the queue defeated me.
We get to the park after dark, having stopped earlier at an Inspection Bungalow which seemed inhospitable. Decided to continue to next place and as soon as darkness fell the road entered a winding hill area where it rapidly deteriorated. I joked that it would soon turn to dirt. Almost immediately, it did, and we travelled through several miles of road building. The predictability of this kind of coincidence is astonishing. Worst conditions of light, weather, road, coincide towards end of ride, particularly when a choice has been made to continue,
Overwhelmed by impact of bureaucracy on our otherwise simple lifestyle.
A curse – but mixed with some blessings. What is the price of a streamlined bureaucracy? Is it a consumer society? Probably – because only the demands of commerce can defeat the sloth of the bureaucrat. Meanwhile we have the remarkable testimony of Chaudry, the head of Geological Survey, met in Kaziranga, who tells how he and his sea-green incorruptible colleagues stand in the way of corruption and pollution. The British Tradition he calls it. His story concerns the use of high Sulphur coal in Rajasthan. The SO2 will kill saplings that ensure regeneration of forest. But it was on quite different grounds that he stopped the danger – an Act of Parliament to do with conservation of Silver, Indium and Mercury.
Transferred to Assam to thwart him, but he continued his campaign by mail.
Friday, January 21st
The elephant ride is off because of fog. At Tourist Lodge we are seduced into 20-rupee room and are very pleased by it. Book an elephant ride for following afternoon. The only disappointment here is food. The four Yankees are also here, but we see little of them.
Saturday, 22nd
Lovely morning and lunch. Then to Baguri. Walked across river with the elephant, where she knelt down and a short ladder was given us to mount by.
We plodded softly down the road and very soon after discovered a wild elephant among bushes and trees just off the road. Then through tracts of very high thatching grass and out into a swampy area with a lake in it. Beyond the lake were several rhino, like light grey boulders in the grass. We got round to them eventually and the Mahout brought us face to face with one that wanted to charge us.
He made an attempt to approach but the elephant advanced on him, and he backed down and fled. This, it turns out, is fairly predictable, but not knowing it I felt distinctly nervous of the outcome. The rhino was scarred and bleeding from a fight – (it’s the mating season) – and actually ran off to one of the big rhino dung heaps to have a shit. So it couldn’t have been all that worried.
[I was told later that the rhino is the only animal that can hope to defeat an elephant, by getting under it and thrusting it horn up into the elephant’s belly]
The white rhino came close to attacking us
There were other small animals and the ride was very pleasant. But expensive, and we didn’t much like being asked for a tip at the end. But took several pics.
In the evening I got slightly euphoric and continued a silly attempt to familiarise Carol with Saint Privat – which turned out very badly as Jo figured ever larger in the story, until the thing finished in sterile abstractions, tears, incriminations, and remorse.
Sunday, 23rd
Walked to shops on main road patching up the previous night’s damage. Bought duck eggs and walking back up saw the helicopters which had disturbed us the night before. Walked across grass where they were parked, as a young Indian pilot in overalls was about to warm up for a journey. We talked to him – Capt. Vijay Trehan – and within minutes we were in the machine and up for the first time. Magic. He invited us to stay with him in Gauhati.
Breakfast splendid. Then I played with ideas about the book, trying to isolate some view of the world that had simple relevance. Tried to make something of custom and prejudice but didn’t get it.
Carol went to Ag-research station and Miki village. Lunch was fairly boring. The jeep ride we had booked for the afternoon did not thrill me in anticipation. I thought it would be a waste of money. We were to share with others, and there was a silly scene over Carol’s student card reduction. But the other passengers turned out to be the grandparents of the barman – 80 & 65 years old – and their first time in the sanctuary. That felt much better.
We saw the usual things – going to the Brahmaputra – rhino, buffalo, deer, boar – and admired the sandy desolation of the river bed. And its bubbling water. Then stopped by the forest rest house, where a beautiful marshy pond lay among rushes, with fish jumping, kingfishers, and a gull-type bird diving. Heron, egret, ducks, hawks and waterfowl played. A plump bird with speckled brown outer plumage and white underneath sat ornamentally on a bush. The sun set on the grasses, reflected in the water and it was altogether beautiful. By then I was well-satisfied, so what came soon after was as electrifying as it was unexpected.
The jeep slammed to a halt amid shouts, and I shot up from my seat through the roof frame to see a tiger – a big bright Royal Bengal tiger shining in its magnificent colours in the grass 100 feet way. The reality of it was breath-taking and it stayed long enough to fill me with awe. Not even the lion can compete with it. A sight of a lifetime. The quarry too could be heard in the grass, and we probably came just too soon for the kill – but what a bonus. All of us were very happy. And a sort of intimacy grew up just around the event.
Not much later a black leopard also made an appearance, and monkeys scattered in high branches. The skyline was a splendid black on red, and stars began to appear in a sky that was African in its grandeur. In the lodge everyone congratulated us on our good fortune. We went to the bar and, after a gloomy start, got deliciously drunk with three bottles of beer.
A conversation with the manager of ITDC Travellers’ Lodges, and then the Geological Survey Director who was loquaciously tipsy.
Afterwards in the dining room, the geologist Chaudrey, talked on about how scientists formed a fraternal conspiracy to maintain a balance of power in the world, ignoring national and political pressures to do so.
Not since the late forties have I heard such a roseately optimistic version of scientific idealism. He was full of stuff about the British tradition of doing one’s duty regardless of personal gain – and spoke highly of the British geologists who had turned over every page of their observations and results to India. He had seen the reports.
[The only useful map of India I had been able to find since my arrival six months earlier was a map with some detail of roads and cities produced by the Geological Survey. It was printed as I recall on two sheets of plain paper, and difficult to keep intact.]
See you next week – and be sure to pay your tariffs. Trump needs the money.
