From My Notebooks In 1976: From Baroda to Ahmedabad to Udaipur

Friday

More lorries, front wheels collapsed, nose-dived into ditches and culverts.

Tribals with three camels, each with upturned bed on top of their belongings. Women leading them had each breast separately wrapped in pink muslin slung over top of sari at midriff. Cows with horns [pointing] in every direction, like the printed characters in Hindi writing. In Ahmedabad a sudden outbreak of handcarts – everything gets pulled or pushed by people instead of animals. Two women heaving one towards me, wore the same-coloured clothing of reds and yellows, and both had their heads and faces completely wrapped in saffron muslin. These wildly energetic but faceless creatures make a very strange impression. And the tribal women really are energetic – they fling every part of their bodies into what they’re doing.

Two enormous elephants coming towards Baroda – the rider is level with those on top of a truck’s cab. Biggest I’ve ever seen. After Ahmedabad leave Gujarat for Rajasthan. Clothing styles change immediately. No longer a single sari but a voluminous skirt, and a cloak which billows out behind and is caught up at the bottom. Usually bright, plain colours, mustard yellow, blue, burgundy, etc. The state line comes just before a range of desolate, stony hills, and road winds amongst them. Here for the first time boys make threatening gestures (memory of Ethiopia). Mountain people, life here looks barren. Herds of goats, sheep and some camels. First camel carts take me by surprise – brown, wooly animals.

Also I begin to see dead dogs by the roadside for the first time in India. Bunches of cactus live roadside – narrow green fingers. Many fortresses on hilltops – the roughest, least valuable land is always most protected. Havens for the proud, rebellious, and I suppose least ingenious and adaptable. Stone walls run like seams up the mountain sides.

20 kilometers from Udaipur on impulse decide to try a bungalow. Man in jacket and dhoti, with gold earrings like old sailor, attends me. No food. I walk 100 yards to village. One row of small shops. Brahmin sits cross-legged behind ––––– tins of grains, –––––, potatoes, with scales. No eggs, no vegetables.

“This is very small village, near big city. Eggs are not available.”

Cigarettes. Packet of biscuits. Get out stove and boil some rice. Mix with soya. Not very successful. Herb tea. Then another walk in dark. Group of men conversing. Children chattering. Further along some figures squatting close together in road, shrouded in robes, almost invisible. When trucks pass get up and move. Then return. Radios playing in various houses. Batteries waning. No electricity.

Agonising night, skin pricking all over my body. Again and again I get up. Is it insects, or me? See nothing, hear nothing. A kind of hell, and I’m fearful of it continuing.

Have a strange dream in which I’m reconciled with Connor Walsh. [My business partner in a magazine which I edited in 1967 who eventually accused me, unjustly, of undermining his authority and made my job impossible.] In the morning have a vague sense of these residual bitternesses being connected to this skin condition.

However, I feel OK. Eat a couple of biscuits and continue to Udaipur.

Saturday

The picture summed up the extremes of India: The mother with two infants preparing food in a filthy street under one sign promising “modern amenities,” and another all the delights of Bollywood, and all outside the walls of the city, Udaipur.

Udaipur has an extensive city wall with parapet and bastions. Take one picture.

The fortress above Udaipur.

Mountains are slowly sinking into a flat sea of soil, and only peaks protrude now, with more workable land between. Corn, pulses, and other vegetables.

The Rajasthan man is very distinguishable, smooth brown warrior faces with down-curving moustaches (as in Mughal paintings) Richly coloured head-dresses, tightly wrapped trousers, woolen jackets and sweaters, sandals tip-tilted. All carrying short sticks.

Land flattens further towards Ajmer.

Camels everywhere. Wonderful to watch. Great padded feet swinging over the road. Heads swaying – how do they support their heads? The design seems structurally unsound. And the shafts and harness shooting up at a giddy angle to bed down on the hump – one expects the carts to become airborne. Who told me camels can tow four time the weight of an ox? What attracts me so much to camel country? That’s where I feel a special excitement – not the tropics. I love the hot sun striking through cool air.

Temperate climates give peace – tropics torpor or discomfort and a sense of being permanently immersed. Which of my ancestors lived in the Middle East?

Ajmer. Open town. Tourist bungalow. Pleasant meeting with Germans, Brazilian, Australian, Chilena, Heather Matthews and the two Swiss jewelry collectors. Mike, black clothes and beard, happiest running down Nepal or Ceylon. She, self-conscious about the tirades. The other two girls revived all my pleasure of South America – listening to Spanish and Portuguese, talking about Chile – and “Hio.” And later about Australia. Dinner at Honeydew. And a too quick beer at back of Wine Shop {Why Wine?) Take a “tonga” ride. Go to bed in trepidation – fear of the itch – but it’s not too bad this time.

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Men in suits should be purposefully employed. When they hang about vaguely they leave a sinister impression, as of Mafia. This accounts for my uneasiness when several suited Indians hung about at the Lucas backyard in Delhi. Yet they were only Indians doing their nothing – in suits.

Sunday

Morning conversation outside the camper van. Exchange addresses with Brasilleira. Off to Jaipur. Swiss promise me a good road, and it’s medium. Now, however, the houses show signs of Government patronage. Water pumps, clinics and stuff. Fields bordered by tall rushes. Camels ploughing. Three men on elephant. Make a real effort to photograph people. Jaipur at midday. Find the Rajdhane hotel. Cubicle room for 12 rupees, but hotel is sweet, prettily kept outside, with a merry staff.

Jaipur Palace

After a nap, walk three hours to the stunning terra cotta centre of this “rose city.” 17th century town planning. Is this the most impressive main street I’ve seen? Wonderful palace façade. Cheeky people. Public urinals yet! Dine at Nero’s, at same table as Nigerian ‘clinical psychologist’ and colleagues. Back to Hindi, and bed.

Monday

Morning ride to Delhi, and this time the road is really good (except where it runs into a small mountain). Make astonishing discovery that speedometer doesn’t work over 40mph. 42 = 45, 45 = 50. No wonder I was hammering out of Bombay. Bad news for new pistons. Was I lucky?

Stopped halfway for biscuit and cigarette, sitting on a stone looking out over fields, sun very hot on my back. Two lads stop and chatter round the bike. I avoid them, but they can’t resist seeking me out.

“Where you dwell?” asks one.

“England” I say, and “Where do you dwell?”

“Diarrhoea” he says, or something similar.

“Have you come to look at me?” I ask, smiling faintly. To my surprise he is embarrassed and turns quickly away. First time in India I find a respect for privacy, and I’m almost sad to let him go.

PS: To Bill Shanklin, wherever you may be, thank you for your surprise gift. I did as you suggested and bought a wonderful bottle of St Emilion Grand Cru. We savoured it almost down to the dregs. Merci beaucoup.