From My Notebooks In 1977: The Road to Delhi
29th June 2025 |
After witnessing that horrific tragedy of the girls under the cartwheels, I go back to my hotel.
April 10th, Agra
At Shiraz Hotel the chickens hang by their necks like small people under a neon tube over a little stage decorated with pink tinsel. Fish, chops, sausages, all smeared in the same pinkish paste, laid out below chickens. Sikhs with rosebud mouths mix beer and whisky. What would the Sikhs do in prohibition? After eating I want to wash my hand – I carry my hand – there’s a loo and a washbasin. A man is standing in the doorway aiming a jet of urine at the lavatory bowl. He sees me standing there uncertainly.
“I am making water,” he informs me. “You wish to do so?”
The whole of India seems of a sudden funny and ludicrous. And if it should cease to be funny, God help us.
The income tax employee at the tea shop, in ecstasy because “our rights have been restored.” He was [had been] in Australia. Apart from minor differences of custom he sees no difference between Australians and Indians.
On the road to Delhi
April 11th, Delhi
Arrived today from Agra. First to Lucas, to phone Macarthur, but he was going to Lucknow. Baroda [The Maharajah: I had an introduction, after sleeping in his palace] was due in the following day.
So I went to A-11 [Amjad Alikhan’s house] and found it as I’d left it. The concerts had been cancelled again, but as luck would have it there was another that very night. Not till I arrived did I understand that it was arranged by a set of Sikhs called Nandaris who consider themselves the only pure ones, wear only white (colours are profane) and are great patrons of the arts. Their Guru sits on the stage on a red rug (apparently plastic) with his elders ranked behind him all impeccably white with a splendid array of beards (unbound). Behind him to his left a barrel of [illegible] sat with a long white horsehair fly whisk. He held the brass ornamented handle against his right shoulder, frequently whirling it above and in front of the Guru’s head (though there were no flies, of course) and gazed at his master with evident rapture, seemingly oblivious to the music. An oriental court.
Two brothers sang, and how wonderful to encounter, at its very best, ways of using the human voice which one never dreamed of. Human versatility seems endless, and the variety of ways we find to express our emotions infinite.
Alikhan broke a string in concert, and again I was astonished at his composure in fixing it – but realise now that nervous anxiety is such anathema to Indian music that it must be got rid of very early in the game.
Hariom and Sharafat are being very nice about taking me in. My main problem is that I can never get our plans straight. One vital factor is always missing and I, at one point, got quite paranoid thinking I was being deliberately misled. In fact, there is a tendency for people to tell you as little as possible and not to anticipate your needs. So you may be invited somewhere, but have to ask for each detail of where, when, how, with whom, etc. If this happened in Europe you would have to conclude that the invitation was not meant, but a polite fiction only.
[I have to assume, at this distance in time, that I did somehow convince myself that the invitations were genuine.]
April, 17th
A nice day doing nothing with Kalidas. (Oh, I fixed my steering in the morning, discovering that the handlebars were wrongly set). We went to an art gallery where one of his father’s paintings was displayed. Liked it. A very fat man lay on a daybed, having his legs massaged. He looked up at me, gleaming, and said, “How are you? What are you doing these days?” He beckoned me to the couch as though inviting me to join the massage. His younger brother later appeared and said firmly that it was cheaper to travel by cargo boat than by plane, though of course you then had to pay for your food. All nonsense, but he had to have something authoritative to say and brooked no contradiction.
They were all retailing the political gossip about Sanjay and Maruti. Evening at K.D’s house. We talked and smoked, then “Come. There are some people you’d like to meet.” His father, a single man, and a couple. The second man was most wearyingly affected in the academic manner. They made the barest of perfunctory remarks to me, then talked to each other in Hindi. An exercise in patience. Later, the Don made the most excruciating remarks about the father’s painting as he showed them. The paintings were pretentious. He himself was commendably silent. The food was excellent.
I like Kalidas, he’s young and articulate, but spreads himself very thin. At the gallery a man with breasts came in – he belonged to a sect which castrates itself. But his voice was very male.
Delhi, April 18th
Last night I dreamed it had snowed in Calcutta. I went to scoop up some snow to drink thinking, Ah. Pure water – and had put it in my mouth before realising that only the surface was white, below it was coal black – I understood that it had absorbed all the dirt in the air. It was not specially disagreeable. There was another dream in which I lusted mildly and lovingly after a girl with prominent breasts which she presented even more prominently in a special sort of bra. But they only acted as labels, as it were, denoting a particular type of cool and comfortable personality which I I’ve often thought might be easiest for me to live with. But they have never shown themselves to be particularly interested in me. In this dream she was comfortably involved with someone else. I was merely the voyeur. There was another sequence involving something floating in a lake, a table in a tent with a tiger which was supposed to submerge itself occasionally and some man who was professionally involved with this phenomenon was urging us (me and who?) to witness it. We did and something went wrong with the tiger, but I don’t know what. I was also at the counter of a bank (one with windows) having my tongue examined, again with some warm female companion. My tongue was heavily coated, sand I went into a sort of whirling delirium, waking up to find that Sharafat was playing a skirling sequence on sitar, as practice.
On different days I have: Reset tappets (loose!); Tried to stop rocker box oil leaks; fixed steering head; cleaned spare chain; oiled cables; changed oil. A nasty rattle on deceleration from chain case has me worried, but more oil in there has mostly got rid of it. Was it just dryness? Nervous now about transmission. Also reset L.H exhaust pipe.
Peter’s promised letter still not arrived, but Gopi writes to say Carol will return there on 21st.
Daily visits to Sweets Anil at the D.C. Market for little snack, Lassi and tea. Bothered by a semi-permanent sensation in the bowels – not an ache, just a presence. Not quite right since Ranchi.
Reading Miller’s Nexus. A bit disappointed.