From My Notebooks In 1976: New Delhi to Kanpur and Gorakhpur

I’ve come up the West coast to the capital where, as usual, I look to Lucas for help and shelter. Here, word for word, is what I put in my notes.

Often, In India, it seems impossible to get away from people, and yet . . . . . . . .!

New Delhi, Monday 27th November

Swiss couple very flattering outside American Express. Give me address in Geneva and invite me there. Lucas friendly (after funny business with wrong number} and I’m installed in a dusty dancehall on 3rd floor. Itch at night and I make another discovery. It’s lack of loving. Self-induced need for caresses and sensual feeling. And I tie it up with my feelings for Carol versus Jo. Painful but fascinating.

My correspondence always leaves melancholy shadow. Pat’s letter needs answering, but how? I start, then give up in disgust. It’s all ego – what I think, and feel, and want, etc. Why should anyone be interested in my researches into myself – or how I want to run my world. How can I deal with this if I’m to continue to value myself.

Tuesday

Morning motorcycle maintenance. No clearance on inlet valves. Too much on one exhaust (right side, and blackening in rocker box.) Points OK. One pint oil used since Bombay (900 miles) Clean air filter, top up gear box and batteries.

Rush to bank. $714 there.

Afternoon meet Gaekwad. Interesting figure. Talks about his plans for cultural centre at Baroda. Slow to thaw, but affable and invites me back. Later visit. Opulent clothing I rich, dark hues. Baby mouth. Talks about politics as a theatre, the need of rapport with audience, understands needs of artists, etc.

Wednesday

To Kanpur. Long, hard ride. Trouble with lorries, and pick up stones again but the one time I was ready to throw one, couldn’t brake in time to get hand free. Fantasise a whole series of events involving encounters with lorry drivers and Law. Also melancholic about Pat’s letter. Feel misunderstood. Last night when I tried writing to her found my letter overloaded with ego and wondered if I am obsessed by my own precious reactions to everything.

Kanpur an unwelcoming town. Very busy and big. The Orient Hotel. English-speaking son of owner. The British always used to be in here. Place as run down as can be, but two splendid billiard tables, splendidly placed at the heart of it. Indian swells playing. One like ‘Roland’ without monocle – he never bends – glides across the floor, shoulders set in check tweed jacket with cardigan below. Other in classic white Indian– long jacket and tight trousers baggy round the crutch, with camel hair jacket over the top and big shawl for going out – lock of hair fixed over forehead and long narrow sideburns – very full of himself – the Prince of Kanpur – lots of whispering and conspiracies, and pairing off for intense conversations – tense scene round the telephone – illegal drinks half-concealed (it was ‘dry day’ in the bar) – cries of “Well” at a good shot. Little bursts of English with the degree of affectation that we once applied to French phrases – a fascinating scene and right in line with my fancies about turn of century Europe being relived in India.

Out for walk to watch (a) a train of buffalo carts creeping silently through the night, to shouts (more like barks) of swathed drivers, and the half-loving thwack of stick on hide. Dormant figures lie in heaps of sacking. Must be returning to villages after selling goods (b) pathetic man in threadbare cotton shivering and praying to a demonic red god lurking the shadow of a tiny stone temple by garage. (c) Rickshaw driver curled in seat, wracked by continuous coughing (d) jobless teacher begging – “you have one recourse – to give me something for food – I haven’t eaten all day. For humanity’s sake” – that last harsh appeal still echoing with my own dismal response, “You’ll have to sort yourselves out.”

The Mall, past Queen’s Park, then canal, then railway crossing. Big advertisement shows couple in swimming things, framed by huge message: STOMACH GAS AND SEX PROBLEMS Consult Dr. etc.

HIND’S Tailoring College, and the tiny door leading up to it.

To Gorakhpur, Thursday November 30th

Over the Ganges, and it’s really got something, this river.

Much later, astonished to see passing me in the opposite direction some men looking harassed and carrying a man in a litter at a slow jogging pace along a long road past sugar cane. The man is dressed in full Western suit, tie, etc. – young.

Bearers have pale blue cotton headdress. Another empty litter follows. They are travelling down a long, tree-lined road, and I’m too rushed (and surprised) to take a picture – which would have meant riding back a way and waiting.

This must have been after Faizabad where I stopped for the breakfast I’d promised myself in Lucknow. Lucknow seemed very grand, huge empire buildings, parks, but somehow I got through to the other side without seeing a place.

Faizabad much tighter, more crowded, bazaar town with old arches. Stopped in square and had eggs. Young Sikh comes to introduce himself, talks about the importance of his family in the town. Father came from Punjab at partition time. First made living as a photographer, then became cinema owner. Have two cinemas and was planning a third big one, but borrowed too heavily and was forced to sell his interest in order to repay. Now is trying again. Son took me to his house up a side street, gave me tea and sweets made for a recent wedding ceremony. Wanted to interest me in old coins. Says he has to sell them because Govt might find them and accuse him of hoarding. “Black wealth”. Exaggerated, I thought.

In Gorakhpur stayed in probably the best hotel in town. Had good meal, although the first seat I sat in collapsed under me, and I fell over backwards. First a drug salesman introduced himself, recommended A & D vitamins. Then the cable company engineer came over, thinking I was his age. Astonished by my real age. [He was 28. I was 45.]

We talked about reasons for growing old. Constant concern with money, he thought. Trying to keep the same level of living. We walk to the chemist’s shop. Boy brings out a tin of vitamins, half full. Expiry date 1975. [It is now 1976] Brings out another tin. 1978. 4 paise a pill. As we walk away talking about difficulty of finding people to take management decisions, it occurs to me that the boy is probably taking his own decision now – to transfer pills from one box to another. The man invites me to stay at his home in Delhi.

In Gorakhpur I discover there is a direct route to Nepal. Not marked at all on my map. Goes to Natawawa – Sonauli, very close. Beautiful weather, hot sun, cool air. On way see two more litters, both completely covered by crimson canopies. Bearers in same pale blue headcloth.

Border in morning. Then first problem. Have no visa. Why? All my visa info is from my journey’s outset, but of course had no plan to visit Nepal. However, can get visa at police post in Barawa, 4 kilometers away. And pay sixty-odd rupees. Which means changing dollars at bank.

First stage in story of frustration.

More to come. See you next week.