Memoirs of an Army Officer’s Wife

Introduction

Often as my mind wanders back to days gone by, I wonder how life would unfold itself if by some phenomena, or quirk of nature, the calendar slipped through a time-tunnel and stationed itself on the second quarter of this century. Saying so makes the period sound ancient and yet it takes the mere turn of the mind to switch on thirty stations and find me in the turbulent, merry, and desperately controversial era, when the British Indian army or rather a conglomerate of Saxon Indian forces formed the main muscle of His Majesty King George V, Emperor of India’s army across the realms. A virtual giant was laying down a pattern of life that was adopted for the next three decades in the army circles of Pakistan and possibly India as well.

This mosaic can be traced back to those few hectic years of World War   II 1939-45, when Asia was emerging as an important political force, shaking the very foundations of His Majesty’s Indian Empire. The reality of Partition loomed large on the British Indian horizon.

The pavement artist from Vienna, who swept Europe in a holocaust with the Swastika as a symbol, was the forerunner of important political events; the least among them was India being flung hastily into war. Unemployment was banished overnight. King George VI conferred the King’s Commission through his viceroy with a generosity that overwhelmed the ennui-stricken youth of the day. The officer cadre was granted commissions termed as an emergency, thereby implying that under different conditions the honour may never have been bestowed.

The King’s commission granted turned hundreds of Indians – Hindus and Muslims – from all walks of life into officers. Various branches of Officers’ Training School (OTS), sprang overnight all over India, or in places where it was strategically important. What lack of class, background and education could not achieve was camouflaged by uniform and the regalia. These assorted hordes were passed on as a legacy to the two countries at partition, India and Pakistan. They also formed the bulk of the officer cadre for the next twenty years if my perceptions are not too hazy.

Life has been interesting with no dull moments in retrospect. In fact, it was a medley of incidents, happy and sad, funny and queer; the only regret being that events were not savoured in their true perspective when occurring. Until 1939, the King’s Commission was not granted as easily to the natives. A handful of native people in the Service Corps or the ceremonial cavalry regiments entrusted with routine administration, passed off as Indian officers.

The object of recording these times is just to recall life as lived by me and numerous others in the war years as an army officer’s wife. The novelty of the change, the embarrassment arising out of ignorance and most of all the constant moving about, make up for me some of the happiest thoughts to reflect upon.

With the emergence of Pakistan, our men were given accelerated promotion and we basked in the sun of VIP treatment which gave rise to no end of immature rivalries. As the years passed on new brand of forceful young officers came up from the country’s own military Academy, who were taught to be proud of the uniform and country in a different way. No talk of ‘the good old days came from them for they knew their objectives. They realised their stature as the guardians of the land.

My own knowledge of this wonderful institution, the ‘Army’, is pathetic, but as I write, this is a projection of life as it appeared to me – neither a requiem of the past nor a eulogy to the present. My experiences were not unique to myself but common to many women who catapulted into a ‘follow the drum’ syndrome by virtue of marriage.

Nayyar Agha | Karachi 1975

Eyes Right

Life began with, a fan-fare of regimental trumpets, as I landed up – a raw recruit – labelled ‘bride’ at Ambala where we were posted in the middle years of the war; this period was one in which Indian officers were adopting or trying to acquire the social living habits of the British officers. War-time cantonments were busy coping with the demands of war, at the same time setting a pattern of day-to-day living in their own spheres.

The King’s Commission granted in an emergency was not without its advantages, foremost being that hundreds of young men, who were fritting away time and money in colleges or else plodding as melancholic clerks in offices, found themselves rigged out in starched khaki with a star shining on each shoulder, plus anything up to Rupees.800 as starting salary, and wonder of wonders, all the advantages, all the privileges and comforts that only the British were able to provide for their army. Life had stretched into fields hitherto untrodden, for all those stalwarts, who may even now say sotto voce, God Bless Hitler, and Chamberlain for that matter.

The result was a boom in the marriage market. No sooner a batch of officers turned up from OTS (Officers’ Training School), they were snapped up like a tray of hot buns. The pages of ONLOOKER, a glossy social magazine, and the Illustrated Weekly of India were replete with pictures of newlyweds. Yes, those were the days; it’s marvelous what a uniform and Sam Browne accomplished towards matrimony. Whenever possible, brother officers accompanied the bridegroom along with the regimental band in the traditional way. Life in military stations was a whirlwind of gaiety, much heart-burning and above all the strain of a sustained effort to live and appear entirely different to what we were.

My first initiation of army life was at a kindly brother-in-law’s house. What I picked up in the space of a short week, was quickly unlearnt on arrival at our station, for living in the Cantonment under the banner of RPASC (Royal Indian Army Service Corps) was different to living as part and parcel of an Infantry regiment, which was still wary of ‘Indian Officers’ and privately scornful of our ignorance about etiquette and tradition, which was all that mattered. Great things were expected of us mere green-horns and I quailed to think by what yardstick I would be sized up.

Being a foot shorter then my tall, handsome husband did not make the ordeal any easier. However, youth being resilient, I bravely set forth, armed to the hilt as only Indian brides can be with glittering clothes, flashy jewellery and a breathtaking ignorance of any kind of army etiquette whatsoever. My experiences and thoughts could not be entirely unique to myself, and must be common to many a simple soul who catapulted to the army life by virtue of marriage.

Life assumes a glow when seen through a haze of romance and excitement. On arrival at Ambala we started life in half a house, said to be the best in Allenby Lines: the station itself was reputed to be amongst one of the best in India. The other half of the house was occupied by a Sikh officer and his wife. We became close friends, and their seniority in marriage to us by three months was longingly coveted by me. Oh, to be able to say with confidence that we had been married three months, instead of painfully flushing and stammering: ‘ten days’ to kind queries.

Jogi and his sweet wife were the first to make us welcome He was a debonair Sikh and a term at Oxford had done much to his accent.  His wife had a job to keep up with his intellectual and social aspirations, and I would often find the simple young soul pouring over booklets of Pelmanism (a memory training and personal development system popular in the first half of the twentieth century) under the direction of her spouse no doubt. He was a great one to get boisterous on a drop of spirits. In fact, he rather fancied himself thus, and could be heard returning from mess nights loudly bellowing ‘Tipperary, or worse still, next morning would be whistling the ‘Woodpecker’ song, ‘I am up each morning bright and early, quite out of tune.

The few months spent here sped swiftly. Homes wore quickly set up in those days with the hired furniture provided by station contractors. The draperies, china, and ornaments were one’s own, and overnight any old bungalow acquired the look of a home, depending on the taste, and ingenuity of the lady who would make it her home. The pattern was much the same; the sitting room referred to as the drawing-room, consisting of one large settee and two chairs, flanked by small tables known as peg tables; a round table in the centre, a wine cabinet in one corner, another table. The radio and curtains were quickly run up with a casement cloth readily available in strong colours, red, bright green, and cannery yellow.

Some homes were very artistically set up, in spite of the hired furniture and MES (Military Engineer Service) fittings. A few lamp shades, cushions, pictures, and flowers would work wonders with the dingiest of places. Four servants were quite an ordinary domestic staff. You had to have six if anything; Cook, Bearer, Hemal, (Porter) Bihishti (water carrier), Dhobi (washerman), Sweeper, and an Ayah if one had babies. This was not much as I look back now, for in the ‘forties’ a Captain’s salary was anything up to 900 rupees. India had not experienced the ravages of war; food was in abundance.  Indeed, when flour was sold at I4 seers (around two pounds) for a rupee the Governor went to Delhi and told the Viceroy that his province could not live.

Liquor was an accepted form of hospitality. Canteens and army stores were overflowing with goods ranging from Kraft’s cheese which was sold at Rupees.l.50 and fleecy Australian blankets which were sold at Rupees. 11 per piece. Elizabeth Arden’s Town and Country Foundation was for Rupees.1.50, and large size bed sheets known as hospital sheets were available for Rupees 3.50.

For this reason alone, many of us who have managed to reach this queer disturbing era of the ’70s are overwhelmed with nostalgia for the past, with a further apprehension of what the future may hold.

The house in Allenby Lines was as I mentioned before, one of the best: I spent recklessly on making the rooms look nice. I shudder at the recollection now, for the mainstay of life was to make most of it. While in a family station one was haunted by the spectre of a posting, anytime, anywhere, without knowing what lay in store.

Overnight bungalows would be vacated, stripped of all signs of having lived in, and wait for the next occupants with what I felt, was a sense of foreboding. Although life at the regimental centre was smooth and peaceful as in peacetime, the horrors of war that were pressing closer from SEAC (South East Asian Command) were seldom pondered upon, but the brisk winding-up of homes and having to move in with relations was the most poignant part of the war time homes. Often as not, treasured belongings were dumped in the regimental godowns, (warehouses) where they would hibernate in a dusty coma for years perhaps. Painful episodes like auctioning of the belongings of someone killed on the front – at the request of next of kin – would make the possibility of a similar fate loom large on one’s limited horizon.

Toast to the new bride

It was, and perhaps still is, the custom in those days, for an officer to ask his C.O.’s (Commanding Officer) permission formally to marry. The bride was then welcomed on the very first occasion after her appearance at the station.

In the larger regiments, it was a memorable occasion for the bride and indicated that for one evening at least the newcomer took precedence over all ladies, however senior. My party was unforgettable for me, as it was then I learned a fact or two about my new life.

My welcome party was reinforced by the news of Allied victory somewhere – I forget where – and was preceded by victory parades and ‘Bara Khana’ in the soldiers’ lines. The big do in the regimental Mess was a combination of victory celebrations plus the advent of two brand new brides to the regimental centre, Daphne and me of course. It is not easy for army wives to visualise the emotions, fears, and hopes, etc. of their counterparts. The early war years in the ‘forties’ had whipped up a spirit of gallant recklessness amongst the freshly commissioned Indian Officers. Much was expected by them from their wives in way of fulfilling the demands of status laid upon them. It was not an uncommon occurrence to see wives taking frantic lessons in English, and making every effort to groom themselves to what their husbands’ idea of an army wife was. Subalterns who had learned the fox-trot and tango by treading clumsily on the toes of kindly C.O.’s wives or else in the arms of WACIs (Women’s Auxiliary Corps) were not too charitably disposed towards wives who flushed and floundered when such demands were laid on them.

Army gatherings during the British-Indian regime were dominated by Englishmen and their wives; wives who were secure and assured of their position of superiority, and to whom the Indian wives of the service stood in more or less curio-value. Those of us who could speak a few words of English and sit through a mixed party for a few hours was considered extraordinary. Our shortcomings in the social field were a source of unconcealed amusement to them.

As mentioned before, the majority of the Memsahibs were either disdainful or patronising – with a few exceptions. A lot depended upon whether Indian wives were in need of being put in their proper place, or else the need of being ‘drawn out. I think I was in the former category; however, we made some very good friends as well, and I certainly don’t include them in these reflections, besides I must get on with my first big party, which even now is a memorable occasion of an otherwise important life.

Here, I feel I must acknowledge a debt of gratitude to A who imbibed me with the highest of virtues and capabilities. In fact, it was his inbounding confidence in me that made me feel I was equal to anything. Never for a moment in those first years or afterward did this dear man ever hint at my shortcomings which were plentiful, as only I can be aware. The dinner-night, as it was called fell on a Saturday. I tried not to think about it. Inwardly I felt a great calamity awaited me and spent the better part of the week wishing there was no army and no Indians were granted a commission in it. Jogi, our Sikh neighbour, increased my forebodings by hinting darkly at calamities, and I gathered from his wife she would not ever willingly face another such occasion, but they were in the habit of exaggerating.

My husband blithely assured me it would be a great party and not to worry. Moreover, he was anxious to show off his mess, in which the silver collection was reputed to be the finest of all Indian regiments. This is understandable as Infantry regiments are just that much moving around plus a strong bulwark of tradition and memories that are reinforced by silver and antiques. Recalling the life of an infantry regiment you had here no chair borne dummies or rotund gentlemen moving around in a maze of rations, tins of milk, and sacks of flour being their sole ammunition. The tough men of an infantry regiment lived the rough and tumble of real fighting; they neither expected nor received any cosseting. The only glamour of their life shone in the form of mess silver and various relics collected on expeditions which would be displayed on mess nights.

Personally, I had no apprehensions except that never having been to any mixed parties, let alone a gathering before, I would be on focus. The few moments of panic were brushed aside by A who asked me to dress well, but not with all my jewellery and cloth of gold, proclaiming the fact of recent nuptials loudly. I was equally keen to appear as inconspicuous as possible.

Being the peak of hot weather, it was not easy to choose an outfit from a trousseau which largely consisted of tinsel and brocades, but a white suit that looked rich and fragile enough to spend a hot summer evening in was my choice that night.

Since jewellery was a must I chose a delicate emerald set, which looked cool and sparkled against the white tissue; in these preliminaries, I forget my apprehensions for a while until the battered old mess jalopy arrived to collect us. Outwardly calm, I felt my heart sink. To be married ten days, not even know your husband well enough, and then be expected to carry off a whole evening amongst strange people, I nearly panicked and only my husband1s admiring glances stopped me from pleading a headache.

The wagon rattled off through Allenby Lines. The strains of playing bagpipes floated across the mess, as the vehicle turned into the drive. On stepping out I was thrilled at the beautiful scene before me.

The lawns were lit up with hundreds of lights, officers and ladies whose dresses sparkled and the whole scene was one of enchantment and I was spell-bound – but just only- I remember two things, it was my first party and I was the guest of honour.

All these grand people assembled tonight would size me up in some way. The very thought sent my heart thumping in my throat; indeed, it moved its position several times during the evening that followed. I am sure it stopped beating for a while too, so much so that I stopped, believing in this unreliable organ’s static position in the body. After a warm handshake by the Commandant, we made our way across the grass to chairs that were scattered around, and on one which I sank with relief, and managed to look around; all at once everything seemed alight.

Nobody was particularly worried about me; they were all laughing, talking, drinking, and full of themselves. I settled more comfortably in the chair, and saw a few friendly, smiling faces around me; I clutched a cold drink lightly in my hand and tried to appear quite ‘at home’. I even managed to lean back in my chair and swallow some of the lime-cordial. A’s special cronies were introduced. The C.O. (Commanding Officer) was most kind and lavishly complimented A. In fact, everyone seemed to congratulate him and compliment him. Never in my 18 years old life had I been so much admired frankly and generously. I was lovely, charming, gorgeous, ravishing, beautiful, phew, in spite of the lime-cordial in my hand I felt dizzy with praise and the shower of compliments lavished on me.

I relaxed to the extent of removing the fixed grin on my face and even managed to lean back on the chair nonchalantly and tried to appear as one who took such gaiety as an everyday event, and the generous compliments were real facts, and not just ‘a la mode.’ Afterward,

I discovered that the same things were being said about every colleague’s wife and identical compliments were dished out whether the bride hailed from the Caucasus, or the hinterland of Devil’s Island.

This theory, however, did not dawn on me till much later, and hence was able to revel in my hitherto uncovered qualities. The party was undoubtedly long; nearly everyone in the station and from neighbouring establishments was there. The band played haunting reels; it was one of the best in the infantry regiments.

I was a newcomer and did not experience any nostalgia. The pipers with their strains did bring my wedding vividly to my mind. Some of the jollier types were gathered around the bar, where A was pulled unwillingly I presume. Jogi, our neighbour was enjoying himself undoubtedly and as usual, fancied himself having a good time. Brandishing the glass of whiskey in one hand, he tried to pull his flustered wife to the bar as well. At last when I thought dinner would never begin a move was made towards the dining room. The Colonel gallantly offered an arm each to Daphne and me; not knowing the purpose of this I toddled beside him clutching my bag in both hands, while Daphne properly clutched his. We must have appeared a silly trio, for the Colonel was over six feet tall and held himself erect, while I barely reached his shoulder, high heels and all. Daphne was much the same; however, we made it to the dining room without mishap, and the rest streamed in after us. I was dazzled by the room, mess waiters in spotless white, stood still as statues, the long dining table lay glittering with its load of silver. The flowers bloomed and the pictures on the walls were all complimenting each other to make the hall look like a veritable fairyland.

Chairs were pulled out gallantly and all were seated. As I took stock of my place at the table, the old heart turned a couple of somersaults and must have sunk right into my high heels as I saw a formidable row of spoons, knives, and forks arrayed on both sides of my plate.

As I gazed at them petrified, they appeared a good couple of dozen gleaming malevolently. What on earth was I supposed to do with the vile things, and why did not A think of warning me about them and their proper use. It would be easier to handle a 303 rifle than this hostile array, which cruelly pretended itself as the first challenge of my new life. A was seated at the head of the long table, for he was Mr. President of the evening which meant he would propose “His Britannic Majesty’s” health. He had no inkling of my predicament and looking at him I decided to face anything however formidable, so assuming ease of manner, which I was far from feeling I scanned the menu, and before 1 could speculate more on the horror of the small arms spread before me, the soup had been served. I got through this unnecessary appetite killer and doubt whether the spoon was going inwards or outwards. I also peeped around to see how the other wielded this array of spoons and forks. The party being a victory celebration as well had a lavish menu of twenty-one dishes. Novice that I was, I helped myself generously to the first few dishes, so that as the dinner proceeded, I was completely at a loss as to where and how to dispose of the variety of lovely dishes, which would be served during the next couple of hours.

It never occurred to me that I could even decline some of the courses – but I did cut down on the helpings – in spite of which by the time dessert arrived, I was in a semi-stupor. I had also discovered by casting surreptitious glances to my right and left, that the knives and forks were used from outside to inside – such a simple matter – and I got the hang of it in a few minutes.

I wished, all the same, I had known it before, as I could hardly pay heed to the C.O.’s very interesting information about the various pieces of silver, their background, etc. I was so anxious to finish when everyone else did and then catch the next change in cutlery.

I prayed for dinner to be over, as another morsel of food would have caused me to die in my chair. What an     idiot to have stuffed myself so heartily with every course that came my way,

I made a resolution there and then that I would prepare a small manual for wives of Indian officers, to avoid the pitfalls I had experienced; something along the lines of ‘Etiquette for Army Brides.’ Alas, these reflections were interrupted by the blare of bagpipes as the pipers trouped into the dining room.

As soon as the table was cleared, glasses were filled with wine and water as required by the diners, to drink the King Emperor’s health, a rite that was religiously adhered to by all regiments from the days of ’Company Bahadur’. Each person poured out wine or water which was trundled on a little silver gun carriage.

After completing the round, A, as Mr. President got up and solemnly addressed the Vice-President (Commanding Officer) saying “Mr. Vice President, the King”, upon which Mr. Vice addressed himself to us all with his wine glass held aloft and said,” Ladies and gentlemen, the King” and then the glasses were emptied in single swill. For me, the King’s health was another gulp of water – a painful addition to anatomy already stretched to bursting point.

After this token of regard, I dropped back into the chair and wondered frightened, what would happen to me in the next fifteen minutes. I tried to make an easy-looking show of drinking coffee and listening to the pipes. The room shook, and the silver on the huge table shook. Mercifully, the conversation was suspended, and the pipers stopped as abruptly as they began, and trouped out of the room. This was a signal for the long-suffering ladies to make as dignified an exit as possible. The ladies’ room was a positive haven, and alas, too soon it seemed we hopped out again, to another session similar to the one before dinner. This completed the memorable evening, and after volleys of outrageous compliments and very good wishes ringing in our ears, we returned home. A was in soaring spirits, and as long as he could be so pleased about us I did not mind sitting through even a 40-course dinner, and a hundred knives and forks every night for the rest of my life. With these duti­fully affectionate thoughts, I staggered into bed.

Victoria Cross

As far as I remember, war and its accompanying gloom were far away from life at the Regimental Centre. We got occasional echoes in the form of casualty lists or perhaps when replacements were drafted and very occasionally a hero would return having won an award, which would result in his being feted all around. Indeed, life would be a drab affair even in the cantonments, if occasional events were not utilized as an excuse for fun and gaiety.

I remember one such occasion vividly when a Sikh serviceman of our Regiment won the Victoria cross and was sent on home leave prior to which he visited the Centre. Surely Gian Singh V.C. did not visualize what was in store during the several parties given for him I scrutinised his face for any signs of courage and gallantry in vain. A very ordinary person whose lack of personality in no way was enhanced by a beard and generally hairy look all over; no signs of any cool recklessness that one would associate with the recipient of this highly coveted award in World War II. I for one thought quite an unnecessary fuss was being made about someone so nondescript, and could not refrain from asking him what particular action in the war had led him to scale the dizzy heights of fame.

His reply was just what a chap would give to a fellow Indian.   He replied, ’Sahib,  ham khud bhi nahin janta ka ham nay kya kiya’, kuch wa ki meherbani baqi sarkar aap sab nay hamari izzat kiya’, literally meaning, “ Sahib I don’t know what I did. It’s just God’s grace and the gracious award of a benevolent Sarkar).  There was an unsaid feeling amongst the Muslim officers and men that awards were more an act of partisanship and war propaganda and also to boost the morale of certain communities.

However, I did not grudge Gian Singh for his day and particularly remember the big party. Nearly all the station officers were there and many were invited from nearby stations. The party began very early in the evening, with a religious ceremony in which Sikh scriptures were recited by a group of Sikh soldiers, at the top of their voices to the accompaniments of ‘tablas’ (Indian percussion instruments) and harmoniums (reed organs that generate sound with bellows). Gian Singh was seated in the middle with garlands around his scrawny throat, looking more like a tragic character than a brave soldier who has been awarded two squares of land, double promotion plus a visit to England where he would be decorated with the Victoria Cross in Buckingham Palace. He sat hunched up a little figure trying to look suitably dignified and solemn. I marvelled at the genuine interest shown by British Officers. The heat and the dust made me wish Gian Singh V.C. out of the Cantonment, for the clanging of the musicians generated further heat. Late May in the plains of Punjab is stifling.  Thankfully, dinner was laid out in the lawns and when Gian Singh had sent up enough thanks to his creator via the vociferous quartet on the drums and harmonium, he was shepherded by a senior lady of the regiment towards the table. Our great blonde the 2 IC’s (Second In Command) wife dispersed the job admirably. Connie was large, nice looking and peroxided and a figure of much glamour to us natives.

I was taken into dinner by a short, sad-faced little full Colonel with glassy grey eyes and bald pate which shone visibly in the heat.  I did not mind the short, melancholic escort, as for once I was not having to look up a yard into some gentleman’s face, as the tragic-looking Col. was barely a few inches taller than myself.  The V.C. sat directly opposite us with Connie our large blonde and the massive Col. Goddard on either side.  Indeed, he looked like a sardine wedged between two chunks of bread. When all were seated, the bands started playing, making any conversation impossible.  I sat tense and slightly nervous; all the remarks about Indian wives being bores, not having a word to say for themselves, “talking to one was a pain in the neck”, etc., all this came back to me, working up my temper quietly. I gripped my knife and fork tightly and looked menacingly at the crushed-looking Col. beside me.  What if he does look sad now; they all say rude things about us, referring to us as Christmas trees. I’ll show the reptile I am no pain in the neck.  Oh, to be eighteen again and be so blithely ignorant.

The band stopped playing for a while; I looked at Gian Singh V.C., valiantly trying to dispose of a drumstick and a whole potato in one installment. I figured out whether the action that landed him in the ranks of the V.C. was less strenuous, than his present unfortunate fix.  Meanwhile, my partner at dinner was mumbling something inaudible which I presupposed to compliment and nodded affably; also trying hard to think of something suitable to say in return.  For a change I, an ordinary Indian Army wife, found an Englishman in the crying need to be “drawn out”.  I gave the little man ample field to talk as much as he wished. It pleased me that he regarded Pathans best of the Indians, this gave me my cue, indeed it was a disgrace for Pathans to be termed Indians, I said for are we not as fair as any Norman and have not our brave tribes of Pathans among the frontier always led.  I extolled the virtues and gallantry of the Pathans and did not perceive the look of embarrassment on his face when I went so far as to say, it was jolly mean of the Govt. not to confer a few V.C.’s on the Pathans; they would win the war shades quicker. the Sikh V.C. was listening interestedly, though his knowledge of spoken English was nil.

The sad Col. started to mop his face with the napkin and I let the subject flag. I was about to start on an Anglo-Indian controversy, when he hastily changed the subject and wanted to talk about the Captain, my husband.  This gave me another cue for I was bent, for at least one evening, in squashing the myth about Indian wives being as dull as ditchwater. Sensing a change of subject, I abruptly asked him “Where is your wife”? The little man looked pale and mumbled something to the effect of Kingdom come, which at once sounded like United Kingdom, and I attributed much of his gloom to the absence of his wife. “Well, if she can’t join you, I hope you join her soon”, I said earnestly. We were having coffee. The little man gave a strangled cry and disappeared.  I did not mind as I had started to feel bored and sorry inwardly that the audience was not a trifle more appreciative.

Imagine my chagrin, when Pat, the adjutant, a cheerful, Irish aristocrat, asked me how I had fared at dinner, and that the Col. was first rate chap, just getting over the demise of his wife.  “What’s the meaning of Kingdom Come?”  I asked suspiciously.  Pat explained obligingly. On the way home A said he was glad I had met Col. Harrison as he was hoping to be posted to his regiment. Needless to say when the time came he was posted to very troubled parts where Col. Harrison’s regiment had been drafted and I was left to ponder on riding roughshod over the intricacies of a language and culture, whose surface we had barely skimmed over.

Homemaking

Some ideas can be had of our verve in creating homes overnight from the fact that we did not hesitate in ruthlessly using the best we had in linen and china. The trousseaus so painstakingly collected by fond mothers were run through gaily with no qualms.

My linen, cutlery, and china were remorselessly used before I realised those remnants of these would be valued by me as antiques at a later stage. Shelly and Wedgewood china were items of daily use and handled by bearers like ironware.

Linen consisted mostly of wares gathered from the staggering bundles which John the Chinaman trundled on a bicycle.  Lace and embroidery, confections, tapestries from Kashmir were at the mercy of Ram Swaroop the Dhobi (Washerman). One lives and learns; the value of my things dawned on me when I replaced china and linen of a very inferior quality at exorbitant prices. Nature has its own lease for human traits, for if I had always been wise and thrifty, the use of my delicate china and fine linen in carefree abandon, would have been impossible. The very thought of a tea cloth scorched or a plate broken would have caused pain. With the passage of time and the inflow of machine-made goods I marvel at my careless ignorance.

The Chinaman, who used to be a frequent peddler of fine goods to homes, has become extinct. A few words about this interesting mobile shop owner will not be remiss. Those of us who remember the pre-partition era will be familiar with the ‘topi’ (cap) clad Chinese, their methods of sale will be remembered with much good humour.

After spreading out everything folded in their cloth bundles, the prices of goods were brought down in the range of from Rs.50 to Rupees l5, after much vociferous haggling, during which old John made a pretense of packing up his goods in disgust, then unpack again with the flourish of a tragedy king.

Occasionally, one comes across a set of hankies in a Chinese restaurant for twenty rupees apiece.  I still have the curtains stitched hastily by the Sikh tailor from our regiment. Like most army families our worldly goods are shabby but replete with memories of days gone by – an era passed – never to be captured again.

A generous cheque as a wedding gift from the officers of the regiment came forth and was nothing compared to the tremendous goodwill and affection which accompanied it.  Many dear faces who contributed happily to the wedding gift are lost to us in this world; others have long since gone to lands far away.  I do not recall much fraternity in the later stages of service.  Life today makes me wonder how warmly are now families received into the fold.  Do they have the same sense of belonging as we were privileged?

Our Sikh neighbours must be VIPs with the passage of time. Another friendly Hindu officer, M.M. Khanna is a Lt. General, commanding the National Defence College of the Indian army.  A few years later, on a visit to New Delhi, I met up with the Jogis and the Khannas. Few Muslim officers kept families in the station, and those who did were in strict purdah (veiled).  However, the Sikh and Hindu wives were sociable and hence there was no paucity of Indian wives in our setup,

The C.O., (Commanding Officer) a handsome man in his late middle age was keenly interested in families.  He had been widowed years ago but had remarried a few weeks before us. This fact was of no small consolation to me as his wife was also a foot shorter than the massive six-foot Colonel.  In fact, it was quite the gallant thing for these tall gentlemen with short wives to say that their women were as high as their hearts.

Subsequently, this kind person settled in Australia, and I wonder where and how he maybe.  His silver hair must have turned a snow-white, as a span of thirty years turns a man of fifty into eighty.  He made a point of telling me that my husband was the best-looking Indian he had seen.  On perceiving my casual acceptance of the complement, he hastened to assure me that he had seen quite a few Indians in his time. On another occasion, as he good-humouredly listened to my narration of petty inconveniences and accomplishments in house­keeping, he said that I would find as I went along that ‘it’s a long row to hoe’. He explained how it applied to life. Looking back the truth of Col. Goddard’s maxim has been proved very often.

The 2^nd-in-Command, a fat, jovial person, was like most senior Majors, who after missing promotion, wear their cloak of being superceded with a certain finesse, as he knew that he was no less in importance then the C.O. He rather fancied himself in gallant repartee; his wife was a statuesque blonde and also fancied herself in the role of a semi C.O.’s wife, and trying to make the Indian wives at home in the field of what she thought and called “drawing us out”, which was rather patronising.

In a party she would extricate herself rather conspicuously from an admiring group – for she was a very popular lady – and make a survey for anyone of us in the need of being ‘drawn out’; then switch on a fixed smile, and advance on her prey. The drawing out process invariably seemed like that of a recalcitrant child being made to say the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, it reminded me much of the time when as an errant child at the Convent School, I had to see Reverend Mother in the parlour.

But our blonde meant well, and I must say in all fairness to her that hosts of Indian officers would be bucked up no end, to see the 2nd in Command’s Memsahib – who was second in greatness to the Col. Sahib’s Memsahib only – thus pay attention to their wives, even if it consisted of a few pretentious remarks, which were all that was required to draw us out to be very sociable all round.

The Quarter Master, another kind man with decades of service behind him, was much liked along with his homely wife, who never put on the airs of a Memsahib a la army brand.

There was Major and Mrs. Scott; Daphne, not long married, was very sweet and was an officer in the WAC-Is. (Women’s Auxilliary Corps –India) My last glimpse of her was in a truck looking depressed. I was coming home in a ‘tonga’ (horse-drawn cart) after shopping and not too happy myself, as A had got orders to proceed to the ‘front’. On reaching home I was told the Scotts had got posting orders, which explained Daphne’s sad face. This was a very common everyday occurrence at any station; within hours, postings came and the accommodation was taken up by new arrivals, so the chance of knowing people and getting friendly with them, as such, never arose.

Halcyon Days

The urban population became aware of a better standard of living. The enormous profit reaped by contractors and civilian agencies expanded into business projects. The POW camps alone provided a livelihood and much profit to the agencies that were responsible for feeding and clothing them. Whatever ill wind blew over the rest of the world, the Indian lifestyle underwent a permanent change.

As mentioned earlier the ravages of war had not yet touched India in the sense of blackouts, bombings, etc., and I was able to form friendships with newcomers from Britain. I could not but feel distressed, at the recounting of spartan conditions there – as the Blitz was on and desperate little Britain was bombed around the clock. How these brave people combated Herr Fuhrer’s mad assaults on the tiny island is an epic, installed into history books by historians.  I became aware of the undercurrents of distress and anguish, which penetrated over the frontiers and torpedoed across the seas to India.

While we were indirectly consolidating our social status and mulling over petty experiences the British had to suffer the sorrow of hearing and watching over the radio and cine-reels their brave little island being ruthlessly bombed.

The abundance of food, the halcyon atmosphere on the biggest of His Majesty’s dominions overseas must have caused no end of irritation to those who had knowledge of rationing, the austere conditions of life on the Isles, and above all the daily carnage.  Funny things happened also. BORs (British Other Ranks) were also hustled through officers’ training schools, on crash courses and the King’s Commission conferred on them. This crowd of English patriots was not very cordially looked upon by the genuine class of British Indian officers and we learned for the first time the snobbery of how one can make out the class of a person by his accent or dropping of certain letters in the alphabet.

Everything being on a war footing, the army had the privilege of priority over the entire populace and hierarchy. Civil Services and Police Commissioners, at one time demigods, would not be taken too much notice of and came to army functions by invitations. They took all their direction from the Station Commander and it is my guess, inwardly, cursed the whole irritation as some evil scourge wrought by the army itself; conveniently forgetting that it was decisions at Kremlin, White House, and White hall that resulted in this relegation of their status to a back seat.

I cannot presume to cover all the undercurrents and rivalries flourishing, but my own extraordinary lack of finesse coupled with ignorance of army etiquette would lead to dropping bricks, which eventually landed on my own toes.

Being young and much concerned at that point in time, with India’s independence, I would blithely gabble on about Home-Rule, Dominion Status. I would even talk of ‘Pakistan’ which word was considered a joke and insist on praising Mr. Jinnah for he was then not known as Quaid-e-Azam (the Supreme leader). Any mention of such subjects was taboo, even in the privacy of our three-piece sofa sets and four pegs tabled drawing rooms.

When A’s regiment was captured and made POW (prisoner of war), not a word was mentioned about Subhash Chander Bose or his ‘Azad Hind Fauj’ (Indian National Army).

Japanese orientated schemes left indelible marks on the unfortunate officers who preferred to remain loyal, not to Indian imperialism but to the oath taken at the time of enlistment. I caused a minor furore, by referring to Mr. Ghandhi as a ‘crafty old man’. The Sikhs and Hindus officers took great umbrage and the few Muslim officers just gazed into space, twiddling their fingers when Mr. Jinnah was called arrogant and chauvinistic.

Muslim officers and wives we knew never had a word to say due to the fact I think that for both communities, the common source of humiliation was their shackles to the empire. Even so, in casual conversation, you could make out the obvious Congress buffs, which became distinct as the months after the atom bomb blast rolled by. It is ironic, but these hordes of officers who were granted the King’s Commission in an emergency eventually gained maximum benefit from the emergence of a new state Pakistan; otherwise, the spectre of demobilisation was looming menacingly on the horizon and a large majority was not looking forward to the end of hostilities too jubilantly.

The “Winds of Change”, which had started blowing strongly as soon as the ‘painter from Vienna’ (Adolf Hitler) first bombed Warsaw in 1939, failed to rustle the minds of a majority of the Muslims in the army, let alone their wives.  They did not even visualize a gale in the offing. Needless to say when the hurricane did sweep the sub-continent, mentally and practice-wise we were absolutely unprepared, and were caught with uniforms and cocktail cabinets upside down like helpless victims of the ’Poseidon Adventure’.

On one occasion, when our train steamed into Banaras station, the entire regiment was Indian except for the C.O., a charming Englishmen, who was named ‘Lakri’ (Wood) because of his tall thin stature.  There being several Woods in the army, it was not uncommon to add an adjective to the particular person referred to. I admired Col. Wood’s quiet aplomb and dignity when moving around a mess full of geniuses and their equally bright spouses. Did he feel any trepidation to be thus ensconced in the highest rank of the hierarchy? Did 1857 cross his mind?

Banaras was a disturbed city and Colonel Wood was to maintain law and order in this Mecca of the Hindus, with a regiment consisting of four Companies of Combatant ‘Muslims’. “Some planning on the part of brass hats”, he would smile and say ruefully. The Hindus in this regiment were mostly on field ambulances, medical and stores in charge, and yet when the Colonel walked into barracks, mess or social get occasions, we His Majesty’s about to be rendered as under citizens by partition, would gush up like hot springs. Such was the aura and mystique of a large number of those empire builders who took the normal humane view of the changing winds.

On the personal side, after the first two years, I learned to hold my tongue firmly, between thirty-two teeth. It is doubtful if the number is correct for this undisciplined instrument would pipe out a retort now and then oblivious to what calamity it may trigger off.

By far the large majority of the genuine Memsahibs were indifferent but unoffending and glad to exchange a few words. There were exceptions. Ladies who were so bloated with rank snobbery they couldn’t look straight, I encountered the brand in very harassed circumstances, while boarding a train to meet A on one of those incidental official trips.

He had come from Burma to collect some top-secret documents. We all travelled First Class.  While my suitcase was being hauled in by the bearer, a high-pitched grandiose voice called out from the window of the four berthed bogie, pointing a finger at me “What exactly is your husband”.  The tone was so deliberately meant to rile, my appearance not supporting my own exalted status – with face flushed and hair all awry, yelling instructions to the bearer to get into the servants’ compartment.  The bearer was none other than dear old Sujawat Khan, such a fan of the ‘sahib log’ (The British).

The question or jibe set the old adrenal working furiously. I snapped back a retort I fail to recall, but was improper I guess, as it set the temperature for the next fourteen hours on the train, which was heading for Barrackpore, Calcutta.  Besides the two of us, there was a WAC (I) wearing three stars, not to mention, the Ayah, a baby and a dachshund called ‘Chang’. The WAC(I) got a chance to ingratiate herself to the brass hat’s affronted spouse, until at one station, she even took the little dog for a stroll, knowing the train was halting a mere three minutes.

The disdainful memsahib was a Brigadier’s wife, as I saw written on the carriage just as mine was in another slot. A would have been seriously embarrassed by his wife giving a half-baked cheeky retort to so august a lady, for she turned out to be the Senior Lady in the station. His four-day trip was extended to eight weeks’ short course on jungle warfare. The Brigadier, a kindly man somehow soothed his spouse’s ruffled feathers and was smilingly pleasant and helpful during my stay. I in turn tried to curb my retorts and scoured the Calcutta bookshops for a book on etiquette.

I found a paperback known as The Foulsham’s Book of Social Etiquette, and this contained a lot of interesting chapters on fortune-telling by cards, teacups, and palms of the hand, and though this was an isolated case of my blurting out rudely, Joe and I became good friends for I told her fortune in several ways, and her husband later was posted as IGFC (Inspector General Frontier Corps) in Peshawar after 1947.

My interest and admiration for the British never declined, as there were so many facets to their character. How for instance, had they channeled the conglomerate of Hindus Sikhs, Muslims and Nepalese to become one and shed blood on foreign land for King and country? I never stopped admiring their dedication to whatever task they undertook up till the last years of the Raj. I must admit seriously to having assimilated the decades of hard work, and planning put into the giant sub-continent. It was obvious everywhere more so after the partition when we were on our own and just had footprints to guide.

In a Nutshell

In summing up my memories of the war-years, I can safely mark them amongst the most interesting of times in pre-partition India. One was able to get a closer view, personally and socially, of Englishmen and women.  ‘Quit India Movement’ was at its height.

As weeks tumbled into months – and months slotted into years, I was able to establish warm and lasting friendships which later were maintained by post long after they were repatriated. Some were regimental attachments; with others it was living in close neighbourhood, and posting in the same station.  This canvas was spread from Ambala to Banaras with Lucknow, Poona (now Pune) and Barrackpore, Calcutta in between.

The style and pattern of these places was very much alike, except that Poona was a hill station near Bombay and very pretty, an important army centre and famous for its race course.

The bungalows, life-style, the social life, was the same, except that one made new friends and the neighbourhood changed, the periods of ‘stay’ were exceedingly short-lived and time in between passed in the houses of parents or in-laws. The switch from this style to the other was very trying and unsettling.  Somehow the concept of living alone had not taken shape, the months or years spent apart were devoted mostly to writing letters or waiting for the post, or else moping in discontent. The chance of living a week together would be grabbed avidly. I look back a trifle regretfully to this period of my grass-widowhood, when I should have utilised those years to increasing my academics and acquiring skills that in later years would have fulfilled life in the loneliness of big cities and the complete anonymity of a retired life that envelops most of us in old age.

As time passed, one learnt that in a regiment C.O. (Commanding Officer) was a substitute for God, who could make or mar an officer’s career with the ACR (Annual Confidential Report).  He had to be got along, at all times, to be kept happy, his wife simpered up to, his children made a fuss of, though monsters. Even his orderly who was known as ’stick-orderly’ (a junior-ranking soldier assigned to accomplish minor tasks for the highest ranking officer) stationed at the location was treated reverentially. All C.O.s did not expect such devotion, but a majority did from their Indian officers.

The adjutant had to be kept on the right side always as officers knew to their cost. He was more like a personal secretary to the C.O. and in a position of proximity to pass on impressions or opinions on the rest of the officials. He was also knowledgeable about the regiment, having access to top secrets and confidential documents and knew about the various courses that would come and the postings which were within offing. A good adjutant was an invaluable ally in conveying to the C.O. matters normally not in the scope of regimental business. His rank was of Captain.

The Quartermaster or Q.M. was another key figure in the master lock of the regimental hierarchy. He controlled all the perishable and non-perishable goods like stores, rations, uniforms, ammunition etc. He was the person to touch for that extra ration of sugar or tins of milk, ghee or butter oil as the Americans called it. If the regiment looked fit and healthy the Q.M. got the kudos as it meant stores had not been pilfered by the Q.M.’s chain of personnel, usually of the rank of Captain.

The Military Transport Office (MTO) was another key person in the regiment and affable relations with him meant one was looked after transport wise when shifting or otherwise when emergencies arose.

Also in the regiment running parallel to the C.O. would be a host of Majors, three Captains and a couple of Subalterns, prominent amongst them would be the Second in Command, the senior most Major. This gentleman was usually a white elephant all round. No one particularly liked him; he was usually a superseded one or worse still, if he was a planning to replace the C.O. the 2 I/C (the second in command) was always mess president, usually disliked by the Adjutant and Q.M. (Quartermaster).

The most sought after and yet elusive person in the regiment was known       as         the    S.M (Subedar Major, senior rank of Junior Commissioned Officer in Pakistan and Indian armies). He headed the actions, joys and sorrows of the four or six companies of soldiers that the regiment consisted of.  The S.M. was considered an allround Mata-Hari and there was nothing he did not know about the goings on in the station, for his grapevine was extensive and the C.O.s reposed total confidence in him. The regiment also had its welfare centre run by a nurse and the C.O.’s wife, if active, would be a regular visitor and expect other wives to take equal interest. This was a good thing, as it set a rapport with the soldiers’ wives and provided occasions for them to dress up and meet in ‘purdah’ (veiled) socially.

During the war, all these key posts were manned by British officers. The Indian officers and their wives were mostly self-conscious, and some of the ones I knew were frantically trying to anglicise themselves, even to the extent of having eleven o clock teas in the day. They were in awe of the British officers and wary of each other as well.

One time, a Lieutenant in the regiment happened to be the son of the Subedar Major (Non Commissioned Officer) and any rockets from the C.O. on any pretext were attributed to tale ­bearing by the helpless young man who could not make up his mind as to who scared him most, his father, the Subedar Major, or the Colonel, his commanding officer, or the rest of the officers who ragged him openly.  It never occurred to him to ask for a transfer to some other regiment.

The regimental band was colorful and large in numbers.  The B.M. (Band Major) twisted and turned his mace like a proud peacock on gala occasions and was altogether a colorful personality. Later on we were to know that there are dangerous institutions like the Brigade Major or GSO2 (General Staff Officer 2 and 3) and the Intelligence was to be avoided, but affably. One longed to be a rank above the one already held and the achievement of that was a futile desire, as the rank above it appeared much greener.

Curiosity propelled me to know the working of our arcadia; the novelty of the sojourn in the army cantonment was of much interest to me and I avidly tried to understand its working as fast as my fact-finding head could assimilate.

I found that a station has such a place as H.Q. (Station Headquarter), and the senior most Brigadier, was appointed for the admin duties. That was followed by an S.S.O. (Station Staff Officer) who dealt in accommodation to the regiments, brigades and divisions.  The Admin Command and the S.S.O. were again much sought after for they knew the best houses, the most convenient bungalows and which was being vacated when. Behind their backs, the active officers would refer to them as chair borne bums.

Secretly, I envied them, they were always well accommodated and never seemed to be parted from their families ever; no heartache of winding up homes or non-family stations for them. Many years later one realised that these jobs were not to be envied for they signalled retirement or else unfit for command.

The English with whom we were friendly seemed to take it for granted that if we spoke English we would have read the Forsyth Saga, Alice In Wonderland’ or else Kenneth Graham’s ‘Wind in the Willows’.  Pat the Adjutant was a slim dark haired Irish aristocrat, known for his risqué stories about the royal family, which he insisted, were coming from the horse’s mouth.

A close relation of his was a brigadier at the war office in Whitehall. Another Adjutant, Clarks was most friendly in a carefree kind of way. He would read out extracts from his fiancée’s letters; that poor lady was holding on to a flat for him in London throughout the blitz.  He sat one evening and talked for two hours on the Zionist problem, which for the life of me I had no inkling of.  The next day he sent us a book and only his posting to the front saved us the boredom of discussing the next thing.  I gathered that Zionist sympathies were gathering momentum, amongst the English – Glubb Pasha and his charm notwithstanding.

I did understand that Brigadier Orde Charles Wingate was in charge of a force known as the “Chindits”, special operations units of the British and Indian armies, which saw action in 1943–1944, during the Burma Campaign of World War II who were going to wage jungle warfare in Burma. The Japanese were pressing on determinedly and their ‘hara-kiri’ (suicidal units) had gained fame. Consequently, A was sent to Chindware or Saugar in the C.P. (Central Provinces) for a course on jungle warfare and later posted to Burma in the SEAC (South East Asia Command.)

I knew an English lady doctor very well, a Dr. Wingate. She had a picture of a plump baby framed on her table which she said was her cousin Orde’s son, Orde Jonathan Wingate.  She left to work in Palestine later after the war had ended. General Wingate’s son must be over 40 now and may well have read some of the books written about the rather controversial soldier – his father.

Also, there were the Anglo-Indian, a class by themselves and had been for more than a century.  The ones with Portuguese ancestry had more self-confidence but the majority of them with Irish, Scottish and English surnames had a tendency to refer to things ‘back home’, which was pathetic and sometimes comical. The war and its accompanying boom relieved the humdrum existence of their lives to the extent that the young ladies, mostly good looking and educated in missionary schools were easily enlisted in the women’s auxiliary corps WAC (I) the ‘I’ in bracket stands for ‘India’.  Many managed to marry Englishmen and realised their dreams of ‘home’.  Some were able to marry some of our handsomest and well placed Indian officers, mostly those with rural backgrounds.  These ladies later on in Pakistan adopted the Muslim way of life contrary to the genuine Muslim wives, who were mostly grooming themselves for western climes.

Joining the WAC(I)s was a much publicised propaganda during World War II in India. Very seldom one would come across an English officer married to a Hindu or Muslim woman. In my life I have just met two such ladies and they are also married to well-placed but non-army gentlemen.

The offspring of such unions always adopted the western way of life. There were from before the war, a good number of charming English-women married to Indian barristers and doctors.  These ladies had settled happily in joint-families but did not give up their dress or language.  They willingly enrolled in the Women’s Voluntary Services (WVS) and worked in canteens, hospitals and also ran the Red Cross centres.

Reading material during the war years was much sought after.  English magazines had whittled down to the size of note books. A funny little magazine known as ‘Men Only’, a pinup monthly was very popular in the Army Mess. Among the Indian newspapers were the Tribune, The Statesman, Civil and Military Gazette.  The former two are still published in India; the latter alas, has wound up publication.  The Civil and the Military Gazette had a strong association with Rudyard Kipling, who worked in a small room in the paper’s office on The Mall, Lahore.  This building was razed and any signs of this once very largely circulated paper are lost to posterity. There was the illustrated weekly of India with its excellent articles and Aunty Gwen’s page for children.

Not to be excluded were the wedding pictures which spread on two pages and last of all Commonsense Crossword which was done by many in hope of winning a fortune.

Besides these was the Onlooker, a glossy magazine whose pages were devoted entirely to social roundups all over the large cities of India.  It had also it share of wedding pictures and all army messes had these magazines available.

The Urdu vernacular magazines thrived too. A young man started an Urdu paper by the name of Jung, literally meaning war. This quickly gained circulation with the help of army public relations and was dispatched in large numbers to all war-fronts where Indian troops, JCOs (Junior Commissioned Officers) and officers were gallantly holding the enemies back. This small war-time paper later bloomed into the largest circulating Urdu newspaper in Pakistan and has an international status as it is printed from London as well.

There was no dearth of good English films.  Many personnel were exempted from tax or perhaps went in free.  The films were mostly sent by the USA who joined the war in 1942 after Pearl Harbour was bombed.

Some memorable films of those days were Greta Garbo’s ‘Ninotchka’, ‘Gone with the Wind’ ‘How Green was My Valley’, ‘Waterloo Bridge’, ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ and many more.  Among the actors and actresses of the silver screen were heart throbs like Clarke Gable, Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert, Greta Garbo and Tyrone Power. Shirley Temple was the sweetest child star the world over.

Army wives flourished in a boom of prosperity, that is, the Indian wives.  Lila Ram, a swanky cloth merchant in Lahore, opened large branches in Delhi and Lucknow. Those Indians who were commissioned in the non-combatant sections, like Signals or Ordinance etc., by virtue of their larger families prospered further, as the various family allowances multiplied with the number of children.  It was not uncommon for some lieutenants in the Signal, Ordinance and Service Corps to be drawing emoluments as much as those of a Lt. Colonel.  Seven or nine children were an asset to their payrolls.

Housekeeping in the war years was problem free for the army housewives, newlywed or otherwise. Going shopping for groceries was unheard of.  The canteen contractors of each unit would send a man round with the day’s fresh rations, like meat, fruit, vegetables poultry etc., and take a signed chit for the next day’s requirement. The Military Dairy Farm supplied milk and butter. Dry rations were procured from the stores on fixed days.  Wives only visited the canteen for tinned goods, toiletries, and many interesting things which were ridiculously low priced and the tendency was to buy and hoard them.   Items like Australian blankets were for Rupees ten and bed sheets of good quality for Rupees 3 or 8.  By the late mid-forties china and English fabrics was replaced by Gwalior pottery and Mysore silks.   Even then the tendency was to buy British goods specially the kitchen ware and their cotton. Gandhijee’s movement for khaddar flourished in schools and colleges but did not touch our army wives in any sense; we held on to our brocades and chiffons and scouted for British made toiletries rather than the Tata brand produced locally.

Yes, one led a very protected and insulated life.  Our tough Chitrali cook cum bearer, Sujawat Khan wanted to be involved in every aspect of our lives, bless him. He would take umbrage if any entertainment in the house was planned without his consultation.  It would be invariably a pulao, (meat and rice dish) roast chicken and a dish of vegetables and ‘trapple (trifle) pudding’ a la cook Sujawat.  This, by the way, was how the good old trifle pudding was pronounced by the cooks all over. It was a great stand by and would consist of anything and everything that could be piled into a glass-dish full of soggy sponge cakes.  Notwithstanding protests, our cook would pile up jelly custard, even pine nuts and top the whole with mock cream and tinned pineapple if he could lay his hands on it.  At dinner he would at once don the belt-turban and white coat of our regimental insignia and the rest of the servants including the sweeper were held hostage in the kitchen, through sheer force of threats.  It was great to see his satisfied grin, when guests exclaimed the excellence of the pudding, for he considered himself an authority in the knowledge of likes and dislikes of the white folk. He was never happier then when we had the ‘sahib log’ for dinner or lunch.

This faithful citizen of His Majesty’s Indian empire long mourned the departure of the sahibs and in later years would openly talk of their sagacity, fairness and generosity, exhorting us to follow in their footsteps if we wanted to be liked by our fellow Indians, but this stage came much later after partition.

One looks back as if in a dream when life did not consist of hectic visits to the bazaars for buying of everything we needed.  It seems unfair that we should live through such trauma, which was not our way of life before or after the war.  Let me call it just ‘time’s delinquency’.  In spite of its tremendous discoveries and interesting inventions these are at once terrible and awesome times to be alive in. At the time of writing these words a cook-bearer can be had only at 1000 rupees, and an ayah who is more of a baggage in contrast to the Gurkha ladies of the forties, demands three to four hundred with no skills whatsoever.

Yes, time has sped or rather we have sped on bringing basic changes in life for most of us.  Some like me, are sucked into a whirlpool of some forgotten age, in which flailing around helplessly find themselves gradually but surely sucked into the, unknown country of age, which thrives on nostalgia and melancholy.

We were thought to be pretty alright if our possessions consisted of some decent cutlery, china and linen; some books and magazines were our personal necessities. To own an electric iron, toaster and an ice box was enviable.

The laundry was neither seen coming nor going; it was a back door activity as ‘dhobis’ (laundrymen) lived in outhouses, and had plenty of clean water. The uniforms and light wash was brought every evening.  No such thing as weekly washes, unless it was the servants’ clothing. All in all, life was enjoyable in this cocooned existence and the pathways that lay ahead would appear strewn with flowers all the way.

The stations most vivid in the memory, where I lived for any period of time were Ambala, Lucknow, Banaras, Calcutta and Barrackpore. No one station or its atmosphere was alike. Later, houses varied and our movements on the northern borders turned out to be nothing in comparison to the pulse and thrill of those days when everything was a matter of pride and performance.

Clothes and jewels were never so happily worn, and the thrill of creating decor in those homesteads never more enthusiastically contrived.

Banaras holds a special place in my mind as it was a station we stayed in longest.  I had got the hang of protocol or most of it self-innovated. It made living easier in stations where all key and ceremonial appointments were held by British officers and now their wives had joined them in large numbers almost as if they wanted to bask in the sunshine of the fast slipping Raj sun. A’s regiment was returning from SEAC after gruelling action in the battle of Sittang river.

Banaras was a peacetime station and also the holiest of Hindu cities; it was a powder keg of Hindu-Muslim amalgam besides the purifying Ganga, there was a large population of Muslims engaged in the intricate craft of spinning and weaving of the world renowned cloth of gold:  Kimkhawab, Zar-baft and Banarsi suits and saris. The craftsman all practiced in dingy upper, story rooms in Adam Basti and carried on the artistic hand-made industry with much pride, and for generations were involved in this craft which was renowned all over India and overseas.

The ready stock would be collected wholesale by Hindu Mahajans (money lenders) and then marketed.  These weavers barely made a pittance; some of them dated their families to Moghul rule in India.

The local deputy collector was charming and had a hospitable family.  We made friends for life.  Accompanied by their grown up children we went to see these amazing craftsmen. Later during our stay, the shops would send out loads of this precious cloth in all kinds of jewel colours to choose from.   Two pieces 6 x 5 of pure gold weave in a paisley pattern had been ordered by a ruling chief to give as dowry present.  I have never seen such scintillatingly delicate gold gauze as also the thicker suit cloth which was a tapestry in itself with bird and flower motifs. At that time a ‘Kimkhwab’ suit piece of 6 yards was purchased for 750 rupees, along with a gold gauze hand veil for rupees 75 for 10 grams. Later we heard that a lot of the Banaras weavers had migrated and settled in Khairpur, a city in Sindh province.  Their products were always superior but by now the synthetics like nylon and much tinsel had been added.  Even the pure Kattan silk had 35% manmade fibre. There is certainly no comparison to the treasures that the Banaras craftsmen created.

Mirzapur carpets found ready buyers in the cantonment area; the carpets were made in pure wool over hand loom.  Most of us ordered these; the craftsmen again were all Muslims.

Banaras bazaars were picturesque, specially the ‘paan’ (betal leaf) selling lanes. Each shop would be lit up profusely and hundreds of glass jars were lined against the shelves with different Masalas (spices) for the betel leaf.  The lane looked like fairyland, so bright and vivid.  Banarasi paans were renowned. Paan eating is a fine art; it took artistry to apply the red and white paste delicately on the leaf, in addition to adding crushed betel nut, cardamoms and literally dozens of flavors to choose from.   The folded leaf was abruptly twisted into a triangle and stitched deftly with a clove.

The serving of the loaded paan is an art of etiquette itself. The paans are placed delicately on filigreed silver plate with dome like tops known as ‘khasdan’, which would be passed around. Usually the recipient touched his or her forehead as ‘thank you, and the prepared paan would be placed with utmost finesse and delicacy into the mouth. The betel leaf’s delicate handling is an art that is practiced genuinely by the people of Oudh in the United Provinces. (India)

Our arrival in Banaras was a new event for me; the train known as Military Special commenced from GHQ (General Headquarters) Rawalpindi Northern Command. Loaded with its cargo of troops and families and officers with families, the journey was completed in two days as the special train made leisurely halts in Lahore, Ambala, Delhi, Moradabad and Lucknow.

The cantonment was on the fringe of the city and had the classical high roofed houses surrounded by verandahs.  Bungalows were set in acres of ground which sprouted tamarind and Nainsukh (acolyte) trees.  The cantonment land extended mostly into the country side and the villages were picture book models in cleanliness.   The poultry served in mess-nights and parties was the genuine fowl which was abundantly found and reared. I did not care for it as the taste was off-beat.   During my stay, the mess contractor who brought in fresh groceries daily would find the ordinary cackling hen or rooster. Banaras was a great centre for perfume and incense.  The brass pots, the gardens of Kannauj were not far and jasmine, rose and honeysuckle was freshly gathered in vast quantities and arrived by truck loads next to the betel leaf shops.  The perfumeries were simply exotic; even in the narrow lanes, the aroma of roses or jasmine was strong.

We were recommended a cook, who was an expert in Oudh cuisine and for the period that I was in Banaras, old Hassan had full charge of the kitchen.  Our Chitrali was upgraded to bearer status, complete with cummerbund. Oudh cuisine was still somewhat sophisticated for us, and needed the expertise of a son of the soil to produce the right ’Shahi Tukre’ (rich desert made with bread, cream and saffron) ‘Qorma’ (meat braised with yogurt or cream, stock, and spices to produce a thick sauce) and numberless variety ‘Pulao’ (rice and meat cooked in seasoned broth). 

Being with the regiment was one of the comfortable times in the life of infantry wives. A detail of Sepoys (soldiers) was available for all heavy work and within days the tangled weed, stricken scrub-land would start looking ready for a gardener to lay out flower-bed and herbs and very deft they were too. We lived very near the Collector’s house. These civilian VIPs had long since surrendered their status and were at the beck and call of the Station Commander.

Our house was ugly with a flat roof, the gravel drive came up to a stone platform raised three feet above the ground, located outside the front verandah.  We sat out in the evening on chairs laid out after the stone pavilion had been cooled down with buckets of water.  Our arrival in Banaras coincided with the hot weather and by 10 a.m. the doors and windows were tightly closed to keep out the scorching hot winds.  Battle green terry towels cheaply brought from the canteen stores were fixed in the window panes to cover the glare of glass; they imparted the semblance of a cool interior.  The ayah Hafizen, but for her name, was all Hindu in looks, speech and dress and was an affectionate gentle soul. The ayah was paid rupees twenty-five a month and thirty-five rupees was given to the gourmet cook. These were considered very handsome emoluments and indeed in later years, one remembered with bitter remorse the love and duty the servants of the Raj era extended to their charges.

With political tension mounting, I did not manage to explore the bazaars and outskirts of Banaras much, which I regretted very much. A very religious city, it was practicing religion the Hindu way and had influenced the Muslims with the same sort of doctrine of reverence for the deities, above all the purifying Ganga Ma (Mother Ganges). The burning Ghats (a platform where Hindus cremate the dead) were awesome but the city had many styles and stood out as an uncommonly interesting and historical bastion of Hindu India.

The bric a brac I collected was in the form of brass animals, favourites being monkeys, camel carts, and bulls. a set of vividly coloured clay figurines was much in vogue.  Set in a small round basket with a lid each figure was fixed in a notch or standing on a clay stand.  All the servants of the Raj era could be picked out in this collection which went like Dhobi (laundryman), Bhishti (water carrier) Saees (groom) bearer, cook gardener, sweeper, and ayah.  This collection was sold on railway platforms and passing passengers eagerly bought a basket to take upcountry. I have not seen such clay figurines so finely crafted out, about four inches in height and vividly painted.

The British wives of course went for Banaras trays and plant pots and bowls, as well as figures.  I don’t suppose there is a home in England where the same brass is not twinkling away if the family has had folks in India at one time or another.

The Sarnath caves were renowned for their erotic sculpture. Allahabad was a few miles drive by car where the mighty rivers met while the Saraswati, a third river embraced Gunga and Jumna surreptitiously.  This is a venerable place for Hindus. Banaras had good civil and military structures; the St. Mary’s Church, the Banaras University and some Moghul landmarks. I always remember with pleasure our stay in that place for few care free months spent there and the many pleasant friends we made. I have never been there since or met anyone I knew in the holy city and cantonment.

Col. Woods known as ‘lakri’ was a thoughtful and kind person who along with the British 2/I C and the Adjutant kept a friendly eye on all families. Some of our Indian officers had brought out families for the first time, and the two Sikh captains were known for their earthy humor, much disliked by the rest of the families, and expected indulgence for late rising, skipping Kit Parade. They would rag the senior Indian Company Commander no end and knew they would not be reported upon.

A few weeks before partition, the Major got orders to report to SWS (South Wazirastan Scouts) on the northern border.  We bade goodbye with a heavy heart and during the packing of household goods were asked to several farewells. I knew we would never be in these parts again, for the carnage had started in Punjab and the military specials were barely making it across the border into Lahore which station can best be described as a replica of the scenes to all of those who saw “Gone with the Wind”.  The wounded lay forlorn and wailing. The dead row upon row, children screaming with terror for their parents.  So this is what “Auld Lang Syne” was going to be all about?

Americana in Fairyland

Chitral has always been for me a sort of El Dorado; my own special country, where the soul felt free. In times of stress and joy, my mind switches to the Chitrali track, leads me through the enchanting Kafir valleys onwards to the highlands, up to Badakhshan. This once remote and beautiful re­gion lies to the west of Gilgit Agency with the Hindu Kush mountains to the north, and bound by the districts of Dir and Asmaar on the south. Having lived in that enchanting valley for many years, in retrospect it seems to have fulfilled a deep craving of the self. I could write reams and yet not do justice to that fairyland of sparkling springs, mist laden mountains, and valleys dotted with walnut groves, ap­ricot and apple orchards and stretches of grapevine entwined across old walnut trees creating the effect of canopies. All this set off by the ‘pakhol’ (cap) and ‘chogha’ (tweed robe) clad men and the saucy, wide-cheeked wo­men in thin colourful petit-point caps set at jaunty angles. The liveliest and the naughtiest, though, were the Kalash belles in their mountain fortresses. Shy and mysterious in their rough black goat hair gowns, with all their worldly wealth in the form of cowries, buttons, and coins, tacked onto their headgear, they looked like mediaeval nuns from a distance, but this was deceptive.

Thirty-eight years ago I had said that this land had all the potential for a tourist resort, for all who go there come under the magic spell of the Chitrali-Kalash and leave a part of their soul behind. There is an old mountain saying that once the “mist” of the mountains gets into you, you want to go there and die.” Be that as it may, I had promised myself a third trip to this land where we were posted twice dur­ing the last four decades.

It was the pomp and circumstance of those years that enabled me to roam the valleys extensively as the wife of the Commandant. Officially, the Col­onel’s posting, in Durand line jargon, was supposed to be a ‘hardship’ post­ing. The ‘hardship’ entailed occupying the flag house with a private tennis court and swimming pool and all the panoply that could be mustered by the departing British rulers. The resi­dence of the Commandant was a lovely spacious wood-panelled manor house and as in those days he was usually expected to double as ‘Mulki Sahib’ (Political Agent) we had another equally lavish residence at our disposal. The harsh Lowrai blizzards meant isolation from the headquarters at Peshawar for at least four months. State affairs afforded an opportunity to study the habits and lifestyle of the Kalash and other inhabitants of the highlands. Administrative-wise, the most serious concern would be the number of titles His Highness had as compared to the Nawab of Dir, or if the number of gun salutes fired favoured one ruler over the other. The tiny strip of Wakhan was regarded as a stronghold of the Russians whereas it was nothing but a windswept strip of desolate arid land.

An occasional traveller or defector from Afghanistan would arouse much excitement. Once, a ragged, half ­starved, slightly built man was caught by the duty patrol and dragged before the Colonel. He seemed speechless. I passed several remarks in English ab­out the wisdom of bringing such a ragamuffin home. Wireless orders from Peshawar indicated His Excel­lency had ordered the prisoner dispatched to Peshawar.

I mustered a pair of boots and an old Chester, for it was cold and the guards would not be kind to this slight, wiry man who had eaten ravenously all that was set before him in the verandah outside. Later in the day, an open sheet of paper on the table caught my eye. On it was written, “With gratitude and many thanks for kindness shown to a lone traveller from Kashgar and Badakhshan. (Signed) Bill Tilman.”

I was aghast. The famous mountaineer had apparently lost his way and fallen into Afghan hands, and was mistaken for a spy. Escaping to Chitral, he was once again caught and ta­ken for a spy. Exposure, lack of food, and fatigue had played havoc with this tough man. I regretted my remarks in English, but next year he came again, this time as a VIP guest with Eric Shipton, and assured me that he was equally at home in Persian and Urdu! (Some years ago I read that he had sailed to the North Pole and had not been heard of since). It was Col. Tillman who sug­gested that I utilize my stay in Chitral and study the Kalash, as they were a fast-dwindling race.

In those days, the journey to Chitral used to be accomplished in three days by lorry, horseback, plenty of footwork, and finally the flag-jeep, which would complete the journey from Mirkhani onwards.  Drosh had an elementary bazaar with a few hutments that sold cotton chintz, kerosene oil, tea, sugar, and matches. The people were cheerful and courteous. From Drosh to the Kafir valleys was a long, tiring, and dangerous journey and it was even worse going from Chitral, so the Kalash were left undisturbed in their mountain fastness.

The Kalash men negotiated the out­side world for necessities like salt, matches, flour, etc. The women never, or very seldom, emerged. The treacherous pathways were no impedi­ment to the Kalash for they are as nim­ble as their goats. Birir, Bomburet, and Rumbir were the three valleys. Any sign of outsiders caused much excite­ment and official visits were greatly looked forward to.

On such visits, I was able to collect much data on the Kalashs’ living habits, customs, and religion for I was able to speak Khowar fluently. Going to Birir entailed a long trek from Ayoun over precipices and cliffs, not to mention dangerous torrents. It took another day to reach Bomburet, the largest and loveliest of the Kalash valleys.

Even after setting up camp, there was usually no sign of any Kalash wo­men or children. They would come for­ward only after much coaxing. It took incessant questioning to get some in­sight into their modes of conduct and lifestyle. For example, I learned that a slight clapping of hands would be a signal for them to dance and sing. Even the aged Kalash women were nimble ­footed and did the fox-trot or a rhumba-like dance to vocal music pro­vided by a couple of lads. A packet of salt, some sugar, a pair of scissors, nee­dle and thread, or a few buttons, would elicit gleeful smiles and another five minutes of jigging.

I wondered how they could be so happy when in reality their life seemed so bleak. The walnut trees were mostly pledged to Chitralis for petty sums. The life of the Kalash seemed to be one of perpetual toil, especially for the women and girls, but this in no way affected their liberal outlook. Promiscuity, such as we regard it was treated very lightly, with much dancing and feasting. Even a young couple’s escapades were considered more in the nature of gallantry. Their treatment of the dead was macabre, though. The body was laid out fully dressed, in a wooden box and the box was then left on the rocks. After a while, only rotted bones would be found in the boxes.

I would come away from those val­leys very disturbed that the Kalash were so unaware of the outside world. Yet, in this very isolation lay their charm and attraction, for they had re­tained their centuries-old lifestyle and were a world apart in Chitral, which itself was a Shangrila.

In the late 70’s I decided to revisit this magic land. Chitral was no longer a feudal state. Much development was rumoured to have taken place. The Kalash valleys, like Chitral itself, were accessible in the summer months by jeep and many tourists converged to­wards those bastions. Now and then, accounts of the Chitrali and Kalash tribes would be published by people who could have no more than skimmed over the place.

My first jolt came when I was as­sured that the fabulous sum of Rupees 80 PIA would wing me to Chitral within 50 minutes! Fair enough, I would forgo the dusty ride to Dir and save time. A standing invitation from a former princess, who was a longtime friend, was the only contact I made. As the Fokker changed to glide pattern I gazed avidly at the clusters of hamlets, bare mountains, orchards and Chitral River, much diminished, winding over dry bed and at a distance the “Far Pavilions” — the snow-covered Hindu Kush.

It seemed all wrong somehow that I should sweep on my beloved Chitral thus belted in a steel contraption, hurtling at 300 miles an hour. Other passengers consisted of tourists with rucksacks and cameras; a few long­haired, listless, hippies. The rest were native Chitralis who flew with much aplomb, considering that the roar of a plane was a novelty not long ago. To them this instant transport had opened up the world and they would never revert to old ways.

It was a sunny day. The airstrip sported a lounge which doubled for ar­rivals and departures. I recalled this airstrip as an emergency landing ground to rush seriously ailing person­nel to Peshawar.  A Harvard would land, barely turning off the engines and take off with the sick cargo. Sev­eral jeeps were lined up outside the airstrip enclosure. Large sums of money were being mentioned as fares and it cheered me to think the Kashkaris were at last making good.

The Princess had sent her son to meet me. As we drove off in their jalopy (times were not too prosperous for royalty) I noticed the surroundings. They no longer sported heather, nor were they flower-bedecked. Americana, in the form of plastics, had made inroads even here. Clothes made of synthetic fibre were much in evidence.

Billboards jarred the eyes; Chitral Mountain Inn, Tirichmir Hotel, Dreamland Hotel! Government agencies had undertaken much con­struction; there were banks, petrol pumps; housing for PWD, forest and police personnel — unheard of in our day. On a grassy knoll were sprawled a group of hippies who could do with a good scrub; their grimy exteriors proclaimed that the sole attraction of Chitral for them was its easily avail­able high quality hashish, reputed to be the best in the world. Mine was no longer a ‘sentimental journey.’ We drove off to the Naghor (old fort) which still housed some relics of the royal family.

On reaching the Naghor I noticed its forlorn appearance; the number of re­tainers had been drastically reduced. Stepping across the dark, familiar cor­ridor, I entered the courtyard where my friend stood smiling politely. Her impulse to embrace me was curbed by a show of dignity. Behind her, in a long row, stood whatever retainers she could muster to preserve the illusion of royalty. Clothing and hairdos had changed, western make-up was pro­fusely visible. I was seated amidst much ceremony on a sofa that looked bridal and then the refreshments started.

Numerous trays, brocade-covered, arrived with all the traditional Chitrali delicacies — cream from Kalash cows, fowls roasted between two stones known as ‘randayjoo’, pancakes, boiled eggs, cream cheese, and a gluey grape- juice sweetmeat known as “kilaow”. Next to arrive on Pyrex plates were biscuits, saffron-colored sponge cakes, and Pun­jabi sweets. The cuisine had definitely changed. So had the crockery; gaudy Japanese china had replaced the ex­quisite “Gardener” (delicate Russian earthenware) pieces so profusely in use long ago. The hour-long flight was not tiring, but I felt deflated. A transis­tor was blaring somewhere. When I en­quired about the fiddlers and the sing­ing women, the princess replied that they had all gone across the pass and opened shops: times had changed.

I tried to shake off the nostalgia. I would have to fortify myself against further shocks for this was no longer a palace and my friend no longer a Princess; she had even changed her fairy-like name. The change was inevit­able. The old Subedar (non-commissioned officer) who was to ac­company me to the Kalash valleys was once a smart soldier and an excellent polo player — very chipper. When I met him in the hall outside, he looked shaggy and grey, like a sad old animal. If he noticed the change the passage of thirty years had wrought in me, he was too polite to show it. Inquiries about many familiar and much-regarded people elicited the same answer; most had passed away.

A trip to the bazaar was something unheard of, but I was glad I went, al­though it saddened me to see the shoddy goods being sold as ‘handic­raft’. The ‘chogas’ were priced at hundreds of rupees, the famous embroidery was but a poor copy of the genuine pieces stitched by the hill women. Billboards like ‘National Gift House’ and ‘Chitral Handicraft Centre’ etc. appeared incongruous.

The shops were full of cheap consumer goods and shabbily turned out items passing for handicrafts. The only time the echoes of bygone days seemed to filter through was when I visited my hosts or some old retainers and retired locals in their homes.

The villages and hutments in gen­eral seemed as poverty-stricken as be­fore, although much affluence was vis­ible. But Chitral was no longer special, just another backward district on the map, struggling for development and progress.

The next day I made for Bomborat by jeep, no more clambering over mountains and rocks. Bomborat was lovely but littered with 20th century paraphernalia; cigarette packs, cans, empty bottles. The Kalash now sported sandals and canvas shoes instead of the rope and soft leather footgear of the past; indeed, one king­pin of the village had his room stocked with cornflakes, tinned fruit and baked beans, presents left by depart­ing tourists.

A party of tourists had preceded us and a group of Kalash women were clustered together, waiting for a signal to start the Kafir dance for Rupees. 400. Cries of ‘paisa, paisa’ (Money! Money!)  were plainly audi­ble. I noticed that only the very young took part in the dances now. The dances were very well orchestrated; the women were no longer shy of being photographed or modest about their isolation hut called “Bashlaan’, where girls and women retreated during childbirth and menstruation. Plaintive cries of ‘paisa paisa’ were heard every time the cameras clicked; a monstrous billboard proclaiming Benazir Hotel and another Taj Mahal Hotel seemed so out of place.

The Kalash girls no longer dotted their faces with juice of wild berries. Nail polish had reached even this re­mote valley, mirrors were common and, above all, a consciousness of their being a commercially valuable com­modity had erased much of their main charm — their shyness and disarming manner.

Of basic amenities there was still a pathetic deficiency. To the Kalash, money was now everything, and the avalanche of Afghan refugees has not helped the situation. Changes in the eating and living habits were already evident among the younger Kalash folk.

In Birir, which is also reached by jeep through Ayoun, the young seem to have fled in search of a better life, leaving this fairyland of fruit, flowers and streams to the old. Although much appears to be happening on the de­velopment level with various agencies functioning, the people seem as poor as they were, worse perhaps, for now they are aware that somewhere a bet­ter life exists.

I came away desolate. For it is pain­fully evident that unless the Kalash are supplied with basic human amenities and encouraged to cherish their identity and their surroundings, we shall soon lose, by virtue of civiliza­tion, a race that will leave no trace of ever having existed.

I soon bade my hosts goodbye. As the Fokker shuddered up into the blue skies, I promised myself a return visit, this time in the normal way by road over the Lowari. Maybe things would fall into focus that way. Or would they? Yes, ‘the past is another country.’

 

Published in ‘The Herald’ 1984

CHITRAL

During the last few years much has been written and propagated about Swat, Kaghan, Gilgit and Hunza. In all fair conscience I feel I owed Chitral a tribute much deserved, having lived in those areas for a period spanning many years.  It would be injustice to that fairyland of sparkling springs, mist laden mountains and happy valleys dotted with groves of walnut and apricot orchards; vast stretches of grapevine, which in complement with the ‘pakhol’ (Chitrali Pattoo Cap) and ’chogha’ clad men and saucy, wide cheeked women, their petit-point caps termed ‘Khoee’ in jewel colours, set at a jaunty angle form the enchanting country of Chitral or Kashkar, as it is known to its inhabitants.

This remote but beautiful country lies to the west of Gilgit Agency and is bound on the north by the Hindukush range of mountains, while the south is bound by the districts of Aasmaar and Dir. It has so little been explored from the purely tourist angle that to most of us in Pakistan it comes in association with the Pak-Afghan Russo-Afghan border, only when one reads accounts by foreign tourists who brilliantly churn out their findings in what could only be a very super­ficial skimming of this most unusual of our tourist resorts, that it seemed enough attention was not being lavished to arouse the interest of our own countrymen.

Chitral has all the wild natural beauty of Kashmir and the pastoral serenity of Swat, a charm entirely its own, and people genuinely visiting it from the tourist angle, will readily yield to its magic. Having travelled all over Kashmir during the better part of my life, I feel I can maintain that Chitral is a land so utterly complete as a tourist resort that I do believe all who go there once and are brought under its magic spell, leave a part of their soul in the enchanting land. It is not only the country that is attractive in its physical aspects but the people, language, customs; in short all the charm and gallantry of a medieval age exist here.

There is peace and serenity in this air and immediately you feel a sensation of being freed from the shades of speed and race against time.

Chitral can be approached by two land routes from Pakistan:

1) via Nowshera -Malakand-Dir and across the 10,000 ft. high Lowari pass.

2) From Gilgit across the Shandoor Pass but this route is used by travelling to and from Gilgit and Hunza.

There is an air route from Peshawar to Chitral. But the main and most widely used is the first one, across the Malakand and Lowari Pass.

After leaving Nowshera, a dusty road leads up to Dargai which is the railhead and you can take your choice between a quick lorry run and a rumbling train journey up there. From here, Malakand is reached by a series of hairpin curves down to Chakdara from which place the road forks right and left to Swat and Dir respectively. Taking the left turn, after traversing a not very good road for 90 miles, you reach the territory of Dir State. Actually, the territory begins from Chakdara onwards. After spending the night at Dir which is the motor terminus, the actual journey into Chitral begins.

Ponies are hired, baggage placed on the backs of mules and you begin the 10,000 ft. ascent to Lowari Pass. A jeep service also has been established and the pre­carious curves are negotiated in a speedy manner, but if the purpose is trekking, minimum use of mechanised transport is recommended. The horses are so accustomed to the track that they can be trusted without bridles to find their way up the mountain. Three miles of riding from Dir brings you to the hamlet of Gujjar which is a good resting place at an elevation of 8,000 feet, with an icy torrent running down a rocky gorge.

Another three miles’ ascent brings you to the Lowari Pass. Once this is reached vast forests of juniper and fir stretch out before you, and more often than not, there is a slight mist even during the summer days.

There is an old saying among the mountain folk that once the mist of the mountains gets into you, you have the urge to go there and die.  I can’t say how far it’s true but I do know that the land begins to cast a spell over you and one has an immense desire to go on further into it.

The descent down to Ziarat, another halt three miles down, begins as soon as the pass is crossed made through thick forests, the ground strewn with all kinds of herbs and wildflowers. The post is a strong stone building, and also a State Guest House, garrisoned by Chitral Scouts.

After traversing another five miles on horseback to Ashrot, another village, the road becomes fit for mechanised transport if desired and another 20 miles takes you to Drosh, the military Headquarters and also the largest town in the State of Chitral.

Once in Drosh, the whole of Chitral lies before you to be explored, not only for the sake of its beauty but enables one to studying its tremendous potential. I first went to the country thirty-two years back when travelling was primitive to say the least. There was much horseback riding and a fair amount of footwork involved. Since this period the land had been opened to jeep traffic and the cancerous tendrils of modernisation have crept in up to wherever it has suited native business and commercial exploitation, for the land is a rich terrain of minerals, gem-rocks, and also big game hunting.

A trek to the hot-springs would be worthwhile because much of the enchanting Lutkoh valley can be traversed. The hot springs is a famous health resort for the mountainfolk and is patronised by both the aristocracy and peasants alike.  A dip in the hot sulphur springs is considered a panacea for ailments ranging from minor aches to complicated ailments like childlessness and even sinister ones such as goitre, cancer etc. The trek to the hot springs takes one through the desolate rocky plain of Shogore which is windswept all the year round.

The local chief inhabiting the large lonely fortress is hospitable and looking at the structure one would imagine “Wuthering Heights” must have been like this and the wind whistling on the moors would conjure up the Bronte characters from somewhere.

From the hot springs, another trek can be undertaken to the Dorah Pass reaching the borders of Badakhshan, through Shah-i-Salim 10,300 feet high, crossing the fields at Ughuti.

One crosses the ice-cold stream.  At several points, the valley becomes desolate and stony. After covering six and a half miles we reach a grassy space and then pass through a forest of willow and birch. Crossing this we reach the Afrik Gol and see Gabor-o-Bakh, at an elevation of 10,000 feet, charmingly situated among terraced fields of wheat and barley.

After a short rest, we proceed to cross the stream over a very treacherous footpath towards the Dorah Pass, the ascent itself is quite easy a lies over grassy slopes. After a trek of six miles, we reach a hamlet called Shoshak, much sheltered from the wind. The crest was now visible and after a trek of two miles over stony tracks, we reach the pass 14,000 feet high. The winds are bitterly cold and furious in their intensity. But as you gaze on the country of Chitral on one side Badakhshan, on the other one is aware of feeling literally on top of the world so to say. The exultation is so profoundly felt.

This and various other treks we undertook into the different valleys of Chitral, Mulkho, Turkoh, Mastuj, Laspar were most interesting with flora and fauna unlimited.

Trekking in the northern is laden with surprises of unexpected scenes, for instance in places the river flows swiftly over the stones and when the mist raises, icicles of all sizes and delicate shapes glitter like diamonds, some so long and pointed they looked like swords.  One cannot absorb the scenery enough and would like to stop every few yards and absorb the beauty. Occasionally in the swift flowing waters would become a deep still pool with scores of trout, rare + like Murgh-e-Zarin who flash by and one is left blinking at a profusion of jewel colours. These pheasants are hunted for their crest feathers. Wild voilet (banafsha), strawberries and ferns grow in profusion. Primroses lay out on the grassy slopes like saucers of clotted cream, besides a host of herbs, among them ‘ajwain,’ (carom seeds) a sovereign remedy for tummy aches. In these valleys a little hamlet called Momi is renowned for its fine quality homespun ‘Pattu’, the vernacular for a native tweed made of fine goat hair.

Birmoghlasht (garden of walnuts) is another beauty spot and is very accessible by jeep from Chitral proper. The second largest town after Drosh and it carries the same name as the State. It is in the highlands and in fact used to be the summer residence of the former ruling family and is signified by its name, teeming with walnut trees. The lingua franca is known as ‘Khowar’ but I do not remember seeing it in script.

Among the longer treks a trip of much interest would be to cross into Bomborat through the Rumbur valley in Kafiristan. This also includes Birir valley. Here approximately two hundred families of this almost legendary Kafir tribe still exist and are now a source of much interest to anthropologists. It is not within the scope of this text to elaborate fully on Kafiristan and I could write reams and yet not convey enough about that wild, interesting land which exists in idiomatic language for the rest of us, actually it is a little known tract of county sandwiched between Chitral and Afghanistan, it touches Badakhshan in the north and the Lut-Koh valley of Chitral in the east. The Eastern province of Kafiristan has been amalgamated into Afghanistan and renamed Jadid-ul-Islam as all the Kafirs have embraced Islam, so the actual tribe has dwindled down to the three valleys of Birir, Bomborat and Rumbur. This race is fast disappearing and if the forcible conversions continue it will cease to exist by virtue of civilizations; a race entirely different and peculiar to any other in Asia.

The best time to visit Chitral and Kafiristan would be the months of August, September and October especially late September to mid-October. After crossing the river from Drosh at Jingerat, we made our way across three ranges of mountains, entered Birir valley, which is a stronghold of Black Kafirs. Birir can also be reached by jeep from a place called Ghairat between Drosh and Chitral. After crossing the bridge on this route we reached Ayoon, a beautiful terraced village beyond which again trekking or horseback riding. A short halt at Birir is called for as the inhabitants have themselves acquired an outgoing stance and look forward to visitors. Within no time at all men and women make out dances which are graceful movements more in the style of a western fox-trot and rumba.

From Birir it is convenient to trek into the Bomborat valley which is the largest of the Kafir habitations. The abundance of walnut trees in these valleys is amazing and the grapevines have crept round the mighty walnuts, forming enchanting canopies with clusters of grapes and walnuts seeming to sprout from the same plants.  Bomborat is excellent for camping and there are plenty of grassy knells to set up camp.

I personally was much impressed by the valley, the ethics of its medieval people, but the highly exaggerated claims to beauty were contradictory. I did not come across any really beautiful faces in either of the valleys, in fact the Chitralis arc far superior in looks and physique. An old saying that a man’s greatest treasures were a Baluchi mare and a Kafir girl, did not work out vis-a-vis the Kafir female.

The Kafirs call for a much more extensive account of their life and ways than this space can allow but a trip of longer duration for those of us who are curious to sift fact from myth would do well to camp in these valleys for a few weeks,

The Kafir women are slaves in the real meaning of the word, with no rights whatsoever. Their youth is one of perpetual toil as they do all manual labour in fields and forests.  This however, does not retard their liberal outlook on modes of living. In Kafiristan immorality is treated very lightly, in fact it is considered more of a gallantry with much feasting and rejoicing over a young couple’s escapades.

Marriages are simple affairs. When a man decides to marry he settles the price with his father-in-law and not until it is fully paid is the girl allowed to leave with her husband. It often happens that a woman will have had several children and still can’t leave her father’s house as her price still owes. All well-to-do Kafirs have more than one wife. A man with a one wife is thought to be a nincompoop and at every juncture it is emphasised that how can a man with only one wife,  have the effrontery to offer any opinion or take part in any important a village event. Divorce is easy. A Kafir either sells his wife or just sends her away.

Their home life is kindly and like the Chitralis they are fond of playing with their children, also like the Chitralis they have a natural turn for politeness and ceremony, and this, odd as it may seem, makes domestic affairs run smoothly in spite of the furious quarrelling that takes place quite often.

The peculiarities of the Kafir dress are fast fading out. The Chitrali Chogha (robe) and pakhol (cap) are in vogue amongst the men. The woman wear long shapeless garments made up of locally manufactured black blanketing. The headdress is a short woolen scarf profusely decorated by cowries and set on the head in the manner of a veil.  The shapeless robe is given style by tying a course sash round the waist. Besides the men can wear anything they want providing they have taken prior permission of the villages, that is, if a man wants to wear red trousers on a blue shirt, but is not particularly distinguished to do so, he will present six or more cows to the village before he can wear the coveted turban as a souvenir and will strut about in a very highly dignified fashion.

By far the most fantastic or perhaps morbid aspect of their lives is their treatment of the dead.  It is an occasion of much feasting and beating of drums, punctuated by systematic lamentations and wailing from the women. The corpse is decorated with and creepers of wheat, feather leaves. During a number of orations, the dead man is addressed several times and amidst gunfire the body is returned to the cemetery, where it is laid down in a wooden box along with its worldly possessions of utensils, clothes etc. The lid closed and sealed with a couple of big stones. The cemeteries are on rocky spurs and the boxes are left just there. We saw in Bomborat many coffins that had decayed with age exposing the remains. In some boxes one was able to see cowries and ornaments suggesting that the skeletons were of women.

I was most curious about their dumping of boxes on the spurs and asking the reason was told, ‘Hardi Phat boi’.  The answer sounds too simplistic, “The heart breaks with loneliness’. This being the most macabre aspect of death that is, buried underground has been resolved by them by having the dead for company, however silent. Soon after the death of a Kafir in six months’ time an effigy is erected on the box to indicate that he was a good warrior, archer or else a horse rider, or even a generous man. The effigy symbolises these qualities in shapes accordingly.

The women by far have a rough time. They are not allowed near a graveyard.  They can neither see nor eat honey or the meat of a he-goat, bull or even a rooster during the period of child­birth and normal feminine cycles of the body. The women are segregated to a hut far from the village and are considered unclean things. During such days, food is left for the inmates of the    ‘Bashlaan’ near the stream bed as these quarantines are built on the other side of a stream always.

These people have a clear-cut code of ethics and not until the harvest is brought in, do they partake of any fruit or grain from the new crops. The bringing in of the harvest signals the onward carnival of feasting a merry-making before’ the long desolate winter sets in.

The Chitralis are a mixed race of the Aryan type. The majority of lower middle classes are descendants of the Kalash Kafirs.

The language spoken by them is “Khowar” but Persian is spoken by a large number of the aristocracy. For the enthusiastic marksmen, there exist unbounded wealth of bird and animal life. Markhor, Black bear. Golden Oriel and Murgh-e-Zarin are a few amongst the prized species.

Geology and Mineralogy have a large potential and butterfly- hunting as also angling used not to     be an uncommon past-time for overworked army officers out on leave.

The economic development can be brought about by linking Chitral year round with the outside world for after November the valley is snow-bound. Its potentialities as a tourist resort are tremendous.

When Kashmir with the lofty Pir Panjal ranges has become a matter of hours flight or motor run to be reached, there is no reason why Chitral should not yield itself and with the dearth of hill stations in Pakistan, this project needs serious thought.

Development should bring changes no doubt, but not such that the land loses its originality. It would be a betrayal to the pure woolen chogha robes replaced by ready-made American clothing and the cheerful relaxed inhabitants of those valleys turn into a crafty lot of self-seekers.

The Pakhti (cooked rice) should remain soft and sticky. The Chambors (dried apricot) and almonds strung-up into the same enchanted necklaces on homespun cotton and above all, yes above all one would prefer to travel on the same old ponies without luggage swaying on a mule and travel into the enchanting land, through the rocky gorges and steep ascents. Personally, I would spare myself the horror of swooping down on a plane or hurtling through the passes in a jeep, for when that happens on a large scale it will not be Chitral or Kafiristan anymore. The magic spell of the land will break and we shall find that TIME, which is a part of oneself in those remote regions, will become elusive, something to be pursued and kept pace with.

This is not an extensive or a very accurate account from the tourist point of view. The hunting and trekking are a part of traditional tourist jargon. The keynote of a trip to those lands lies in its heavenly peace which prevails over all the hamlets and villages whether in the valleys or the highlands. Madaghlasht, by the way, is inhabited by a set of people who speak Persian and are all craftsmen; they make the most complicated knitting patterns on horn-carved knitting needles and their sense of artistry is amazing. They celebrate Nauroze with great fervour. To reach this highland fastness, we turn from Drosh, the Scout Headquarters towards Shishi Koh and traversing through forests upwards reach this isolated community.

The majority of people are Sunni Muslims.  The highlands are inhabited by followers of the Agha Khan. They are known as the Molais’ of course. The Kalash are known as the Kafirs since they inhabited the Hindu-Kush range. Our city dwellers would certainly benefit from the stress of urban living to just get out and forget the rat-race for a few weeks. If at first they are apprehensive of trekking they need to fly into Chitral from Peshawar and then explore the valleys in a crash schedule.

Whatever the means this Paradise on our northern certainly merits snore attention from our own people who are not aware how much interest is aroused in these fabled valleys by nationals of faraway lands who travel across continents to sturdy and research the races inhabiting this tourist resort in our own country.

So heave ho, friends and the next time you feel like a change make the journey up north, a most rewarding venture at all times.

 

Nayyar Agha.

Karachi 18.5.1979.

JOURNEY INTO KAFIRISTAN

To condense into three such ordinary words an experience, which was so utterly novel and interesting, is rather inadequate, but then I could write reams and yet not be able to describe that wild interesting land which exists in the form of a fantasy for most of us.

What is Kafiristan? Where is Kafiristan? These were the oft repeated questions put to us, whenever we reminisced over it, a subject dear to our hearts.

Kafiristan is a little known tract of country sandwiched between Chitral and Afghanistan. It touches Badakhshan on the North and Lut-Koh valley of Chitral in the North-East, and East Afghanistan on the West. Now the Western part of Kafiristan is amalgamated into Afghanistan and renamed Jadid-ul-Islam, as all the Kafirs here have embraced Islam.

Kafiristan has now dwindled down to two or three small localities which come under the patronage of Pakistan, being part and parcel of Chitral Agency. My observations about the Kafirs pertain to the inhabitants of the three valleys of Birir, Bomboret and Rumbur, for it is in these mountains that the remnants of a once large and fabled race is surviving under conditions of gradual amalgamation.

’Kafir’ according to the Muslim concept of faith is “any unbeliever in Islam”. ‘Stan’ stands for land; the tribes living in the Hindu-Kush valleys whose actual racial title is KALASH, must have been thus named, due to their being virtually surrounded on all sides by Muslim countries. Their land, known to them by the name of ‘Bashghal, must have been named ‘Kafiristan’ by zealous crusaders.

I feel sure that ‘Hindu Kush’ the by which this mighty  mountain range  to  the  north  of   Pakistan  is known, and in whose valleys the Kalash  races existed and dwindled  under fanatical Muslim onslaughts, is also an  epitaph to  commemorate the homicides committed in the name of faith, for ‘Kush’ is the equivalent of ‘Kill’ in Persian, whereas  ’Hindu’ stood for the idol worshippers of Hindustan.

During the last few years I have read off and on accounts of Kafiristan in various newspapers and magazines, which must have been written by individuals who could not have done more than blaze a week’s trail through those valleys, and also in the ignorance of language and realities of life as it is lived by those people. Fortunately for me, I was able to live for many months among them and gain firsthand knowledge of what in my opinion was a fraction of those peoples’ culture. Reading such occasional articles, I don’t feel enough justice is done to them by the vague and rather general descriptions rendered by whirlwind tourists for if anything, that community calls for a much detailed observation of their mode of life, the only true gauge of which can be the maximum duration of time spent in their company, amidst the background of their homes in their own valleys.

I feel very lucky to have seen Kafiristan without making any special pioneering effort to do so. It was during my stay in Chitral over two and a half decades ago that I first had occasion to come across a few Kafirs, while trekking to the hot springs in Lutkoh valley.  Their unusual black dress, timid bearing and agility of movement attracted me even then, for where was the ferociousness associated with the Kafirs of Hindukush and what of the fabled beauty of Kafir belles? I made up my mind that I would avail the first opportunity of seeing for myself who these mysterious people were and where and how they lived,

The country of Chitral is in itself an ancient and interesting land, and merits more details than I can give here.  It is believed that lower Chitral at one time was a stronghold of the Kalash tribes; however, at present it holds a commanding position due to its strategic location on Pakistan’s northern most frontiers immediately to the West of Gilgit and surrounded likewise by the Hindu Kush range of mountains on the north. It is said to be the junction of a trinity of empires, as in the North a  very narrow strip of Afghanistan divides it from Russian and the Chinese province of Sinkiang.  Chitral has a language, geography, culture nod history, all its own. I grew much attached to it during my stay there, and hoped to be able to record an ode to it sometimes. It has the potentialities of an immense tourist resort, since the Kafir valleys are accessible easily via Chitral.

Our enthusiasm found us one day of late September heading for Kafiristan, where my husband had decided to spend a month’s leave for the benefit of getting acquainted with the Kafirs. We were armed with camp-kit, mules, stores, horses, guides and all the paraphernalia without which no army officer would think of proceeding on camp. Our Chitrali orderly, who now boasted a not so remote Kefir ancestry also elected to accompany us and we found him invaluable as a guide and an interpreter.

Kafiristan as it exists today is a misnomer, and standing to mean the “land of infidels”. It seems a very contradictory conception, for the infidels appeared to me a highly sensitive people, and with depths in certain facets of their life which I have not yet encountered even in the midst of modern civilisation of my limited experience.

The Kafir valleys, specially Birir and Bomboret are breathtakingly lively, a virtual fairyland of sparkling springs, happy valleys, thickly strewn with groves of walnut, apricot and pomegranate trees, coupled with vast stretches of grapevines reputed to have provided all the vintage of the Moghal courts, and earned for these valleys the epitaph of the ‘Vineyards of Asia’.

This description tallies more with our ideas of the promised Heaven in the “Kingdom to Come”, and no one ever heard heaven inhabited by anyone less than ‘houries’, and men of perennial youth. Women however, living in this heaven on earth are attractive, saucy looking creatures, with their cowrie-covered headdresses set at perky angles. All this began to cast their spell on us. The moment we turned round a mountain bend we found ourselves in Kafiristan, but I am beginning in the middle of my tale for the road to fairyland  hardly begins so smoothly. In fact, it is a weary trudge over difficult mountain terrain. This partly is one of the reasons why the Kafirs have retained their originality otherwise the existing remnants would have been ‘civilised’ or I feel brutalised long ago.

We crossed the Chitral river in Jinjerat, a small village but nevertheless intensely beautiful, with its glades and waterfalls. I was struck with the profusion of grapes. The vines ran amok, loaded   with luscious fruit of which the large black variety appeared in profusion.

We could stretch our hands at random, and break huge bunches just for the pleasure of eating them. The Kafirs did not seem to mind, for in their code of civics “everyone has a right to everything”. When we tried to give them money, a commodity seldom seen in those parts they refused it, saying that “Mah-Losh (the Kafir oracle equivalent to God) does not allow its bounties to be sold, as they are his gifts for all mankind.

To have such ethics from a so-called ‘savage’ clad in ragged home-spun, who has to wrest a whole years living in a land which is snow-bound for six months, yields just one crop during the remaining six months of the year, puts to shame us “civilised’ specimens of the jet and sputnik era, who would unhesitatingly handover mere trespassers to the police.

We noted that no man or woman of the valley touched fruit or grain with their own hands, with the intention of breaking until the inauguration of the harvest festival known in their language as “Grueshp”.  When this event is ushered in during late September, it is a signal for the gathering of fruits, crops etc. amidst much feasting and re­joicing.  The festival is eagerly looked forward to by the Kafirs, and also the inhabitants of neighbouring Chitral villages, who trudge long distances, secure in their expectations of reaping abundantly from the Kafirs’ generosity. We did not tarry long in Birir, lovely as it was, for Matung, who had assumed the role of senior guide and interpreter was very anxious for us to be in time to see the harvest celebrations in the next valley of Bomborat. Matung himself was a resident of Bomborat and a Kafir of much dignity and social-status in his community. We, however, stayed two nights and a day in Birir; long enough for us to look around the village and for me to make friends with the women, among whom my main interest lay.

A dance was arranged by the head-man of the village, for Kafir dances are a novelty and are different to any other in Pakistan. In Kafiristan everybody dances. It is not confined to any special set of people, but comes automatically as a part of living to those people, and comprises a major portion of their marriage, birth and burial ceremonies. Young and old alike, take part in the dance. They collected under the shade of a lofty walnut tree on a grassy space to the beating of tom-toms. We sat on a tree stump, utterly fascinated, for the women joined hands in a circle, with the men forming an outer circle in a sort of Paul Jones. They then rendered the dance to loud wailing noises in eerie rhythm, later splitting in twos and threes and breaking out into dizzy reels. They are extremely light-footed; even the old women over sixty are amazingly agile. Although I did not particularly care for the hoo-hooing and wailing, I did note that their dance movements were similar in swing and rhythm to the fox-trot and quick-step of western dance halls, especially when executed by some of the blue eyed Nordic types. I felt that the claim of some Western travellers about the remote European descent of this fast dwindling race could be partly true. After the dance was over they tripped off, light as butterflies. The women evinced great interest in me, and were all for investigating my apparel and outward appearance thoroughly, for at the time of my first visit to these valleys, I feel sure that no foreign females, except an occasion traveller from Chitral or Badakhshan had crossed these mountains; indeed, everything about me became such a source of curiosity to the Kafir ladies of Birir, that soon I was in an unenviable position of being under close scrutiny from those I had gone to observe.

They touched my hair, smelt it a number of times, and tried to scrape the remnants of nail polish from my toes. They pulled at my shirt and were enchanted with my “Shalwars”, (baggy trousers worn by Pakistan women) and would want to know- how I got into them. These and other investigations which had by now taken an uncomfortable turn were mercifully put to an end, when Matung, perceiving my discomfort, shooed them back to their fields.

The village of Birir, which like other Kafir villages, is situated on a slope, appeared to be cascading down the mountain­side and looked very picturesque indeed. All available land is used for cultivation; the cattle though small in size, are sturdy and yield plenty of milk. A cow from these valleys fetches a high price in Chitral.

After effusive good-byes we proceeded upstream for one and a half miles through densely cultivated country on the left bank of Birir ‘gol’, (gol means stream)  and then turned up North to the Srupet gol which is near the hamlet of Noshbu. The hills are covered on both sides with holly-bushes. Beyond Noshbu we struck up on a stiff shale hill, and then descended into a gol with the fascinating name of Tara-ring, which had plenty of water. After a stiff climb up North on the route which is known as Gandal-o-pon we went through a forest of deodars (Fir trees). The climb was very stiff in some places, and we reached the summit called Grandil-o-gri at an elevation of 9000 feet. I forgot to mention earlier that horses and mules were left behind at Birir, for they had more than hindered us on our course. Due to the very precarious footholds on bare cliff sides we had hired coolies for our Kit and decided to foot our way through Kafiristan. From Grand-o-gri a steep descent leads us to the outskirts of Bomborat, the sheer loveliness of which could only be compared to Birir.

Having lived and been through almost all the Northern areas of Kashmir, Gilgit, Ladakh, Hunza and Nagar, particularly Kashmir, and in turn having extolled their beauty, I felt a little regretful that I had nothing but stock phrases and well-worn clichés to describe Bomborat, for it certainly merits more praise then available in my limited vocabulary.

Bombarat is a thickly wooded valley of walnut trees, and contains innumerable orchards of apples, apricots and pomegranates loaded beyond words with fruit. The grape-vines loop in festoons from tree to tree, and it appears that grapes and walnuts grow on the same branches.

The torrents which crashed over rocky-boulders were crystal and diamond in the sunlight. Amidst smoothly rounded lichen-covered stones, grew hundreds of little ferns and plants which must need a call for botanical identification; the turf was green and springy. We moved up the valley till we reached “Sheikhan Deh”, the last hamlet at the foot of lofty mountains, beyond which lay Afghanistan.

After looking around the village we made our way down the valley again. Shaikhan Deh is a desolate spot; the inhabitants however, boast of more amenities than any other of the valleys; very fine chairs, beds in each hut made of strong cow-hide, weaved cunningly round the wood structure, also thick woolen rugs, made from crudely dyed sheep’s wool, these latter articles were very gay looking and gave a cosy interior to the huts. We stopped nearly in the middle of the valley after a four-mile trudge from the terminus of Shaikhan Deh. It was late noon and we decided to put up our tents under a group of stately walnut trees, between which a clear brook ran merrily gurgling; the turf was even and springy as if hand-tended. Yet another torrent crashed loudly over the stones some ten yards opposite. We had a large view of the valley on both sides as our camp site was on a slight elevation. The sun sets quickly in hilly places, and soon all that gleamed and sparkled in sunlight was sad and gloomy.

As the evening shadows lengthened flocks of cattle and sheep were wending their way home down the mountains, and the shepherdesses played on their locally made flutes emitted such haunting melodies that for some reason I felt unaccountably sad.

It was in this lovely spot that six weeks of my husband’s leave sped away on wings while I felt a freedom of spirit and mind, hitherto unknown amidst the more formal demands of life. We would spend the clear sparkling days roaming round the valley, making the acquaintance of those quaint people and their equally curious mode of life. By nightfall we would sit around a blazing fire in the open, and Matung the old Kafir along with his daughter Chameek (the shining one) would relate Kalash legends and folk love under the stars. The faithful Sajjad Khan would be in close attendance, ready to interpret end explain anything that I felt needed elaboration. The valley was at its happiest for the Kafirs were busy collecting the harvest; nature is especially bountiful to such of its creatures, as do not meddle with it, and all over the hamlets singing, dancing and merrymaking was proof enough of thanksgiving for a generous harvest.

I could not study and verify all that I saw and heard, most of my data was collected by incessant questioning: moreover, our trip to Kafiristan was with no thought of ever putting our observations in print. It was long after my return from those valleys that I even put on paper, for the benefit of my children a few legends and folklore that I remembered from the star-lit nights at Bomborat.

Even to my amateur knowledge it appeared that these people would be the proverbial gold-mine for anthropologists, and some of their beliefs and practices reveal definite theories, and need to be thoroughly researched upon deeply in the light of their background.

Also, if their conversion to Islam is not definitely stopped, it will wipe out by virtue of civilisation a race, entirely different to any other in Asia. Luckily for me, “Khowar”, the language spoken in Chitral was also the common lingua-franca in Kafiristan. The Kafirs have a separate language of their own known as ‘Kelash Mandar’, like Khowar but very few Chitralis know ‘Kalash’ . My fair command on Khowar proved invaluable, as I was able to talk freely to the Kafirs and learn from them rudiments of Kalash.

My impression of this language was that a majority of words and verbal forms resembled the Sanskrit language. Of course, I claim not even a smattering knowledge of this great language, but a vague remembrance of Hindi words, in vogue before the partition of this sub-continent convinced me that there is a latent link between Kalash and Sanskrit; besides it contains an abundance of Persian and Khowar words also.

The origin of the Kalash tribes is not yet ascertained. No light whatsoever, can be thrown by the Kafirs themselves on their past history. Prom various accounts they are supposed to be descendants of an ancient Aryan race which was spread over large areas of Swat, Bajaur and Peshawar. They were driven back from these fertile districts by early Muslim onslaughts to the regions they occupy now. Although the sculptured remains in these areas indicate that the people were strong Buddhists, yet there is no trace of Buddhism in the Kafir religion which is pure idolatry.

Their chief gods are Imbra, the creator, and Gish the war god. Mah-losh is a wooden deity more in the form of an oracle, and usually enshrined on a elevation. It is venerated with sacrifices of goats, sheep etc., and all important events, oaths are left to the vagaries of this wooden monstrosity.

Another theory on their origin is that they are remnants of the hordes of Alexander the Great, who were left behind, and then settled down in these valleys during the 3rd century B.C. Nothing, much however, in their set up, points towards Greek ancestry, unless an occasional cast of features may be termed Grecian. For all we know they may even be one of the last tribes of Israel.

Their origin demands a more skilled historical research then my amateur rummaging could bring forth. I cannot deal here fully with all aspects of their social and domestic life, which contains a wealth of fascinating detail but is not without its dark side as well.

The Kafir women are slaves in the real meaning of the word. They have no rights of any kind and their younger life is one of perpetual toil. They do manual labour in the fields where they look quite picturesque in their black dresses and horned head-gear, like nuns in black habits. Their status in life is very servile and they have no excess to what we would consider ordinary privileges, for instance, a thing like honey which is found in abundance in Kafiristan, and is a staple article of diet, is prohibited to the womenfolk. Every homestead has its own hive in a wooden box, and yet the females may not even look at the stuff. If accidently, their gaze blights the comb while the honey is being extracted it is considered a bad omen. A woman may however, eat honey in another house in the dark without seeing it. Now, what is one to make of such logic? It certainly calls for an anthropological study of the background of such seemingly funny practices, but which may be backed by sound theories.

The women are also debarred from eating the flesh of a rooster, ox, he-goat and ram; they can however, partake freely of the ‘Female of the Species’ These hardships and restraints in no way retard their promiscuous disposition, for in Kafiristan immorality is treated very lightly, indeed it is considered more of a gallantry with much feasting and rejoicing over a young couple’s escapades.

The Kafirs have a blithely bohemian attitude towards sex and love.  Kafir youths learn early in life the intricacies of courting and pursuing their women, and will gallantly serenade them over hills and valleys. The girls too are adept in the art of giving a glad eye generously, and it is not confined to the precincts of their race either. Marriages among them only follow as a consequence of previous courtship.  Love-making, elopements are an ordinary occurrence. Gretna Green is any little hamlet scattered over the valley.

Another very conspicuous and unusual feature relating to the women folk was the policy of segregation during certain periods. Every village has a house set apart usually on the banks of a stream, some small distance from the village. The ’Kalash’ word for this dwelling is Bachlaan (pronounced Bashlon). Into this hutment which is fairly large in size, retire all females of the village married or unmarried during the time of menstruation. The general idea being that women at such a time are unclean creatures, best out of the way, so that the community is saved from pollution. The slightest, physical contact is taboo; food is brought from their homes and handed into utensils which are special to the Bashlaan, even then they have to be washed and rinsed several times before they are taken back.

The food is brought by females or minor male members of the family. The women are allowed to leave the ‘Bashlaan’ on the seventh day from entry. After having bathed and also washed their long thick gowns in the stream, the gowns are donned damp and dried on the wear. I was assured that this rule was also strictly adhered to even during the long winter months; of course bath-water was heated then. Women also retire to this isolation hut during child-birth and remain there for forty days during which period they are attended by mid-wives of the village. For reasons of hygiene, such practices are unquestionable, and I personally think that these monthly lapses into feminine seclusion are well earned rest for those hard worked women, who seem to carry the burden of toil in the land. This streak of untouchability is reminiscent of orthodox Hindus and adds weight to their theory of Aryan descent.

I visited the Bashlaan armed with my camera. The Kafirs seemed quite unconcerned but there was a show of prude embarrassment among our retinue. The inmates of the hut during that particular period seemed to be in a jolly mood, and were sitting out in the sun. One of them was preparing to leave. I shuddered at the wet blanket gown she had donned after washing; it did not appear to bother her for she looked quite cheerful and possessed a startling resemblance to Vivien Leigh. I snapped her several times and with each click of the camera that vivacious, creature screamed aloud insisting that something pierced her chest every time!!!

I promised them a snap when the film was developed, but they attributed me to sorcery, and refused to believe that their jolly selves could ever be accommodated in the dark recesses of my 6 by 4 Kodak.

When I had occasion to visit these valleys again after a lapse of twelve years, I found these people quite at home with silver and paper money; the camera and gramophone were not anymore a novelty. Some of the women even asked me for soap and scissors. There were however, no changes in dress, except among the converts who had adopted the conventional dress worn in Chitral. The real ‘Kalash’ folk remain true to their black blanket wardrobe.

The Kafirs like to wear gaudy clothes and unusual costumes for festivals. The rule is that any man may wear what he wants, provided he has obtained prior sanction from the villagers by feasting them. For instance, if a man wants to wear a pair of red trousers, and is not considered parti­cularly distinguished to do so, he will present two cows to the village before he can wear the coveted garment. A man who has killed no less than five enemies is permitted to use a blue turban. As a rule, the men feel very proud if they can wangle this article in their wardrobe, and strut about in it pompously. I could not confirm the authenticity of this fact; I merely alighted on it during a discussion on dress habits with Matung.

The women wear long, shapeless garments made of locally manufactured black blanketing, and their head-dress is a short woolen veil, spread over a horned head-gear. The long shapeless gown is given style by a wide sash of coarse material tied round at the waist. The veil is profusely decorated with cowries to such an extent that the fabric is invisible. The richness of the head-gear and the abundance of the cowries tacked on is an indication of the economic status of a Kafir woman.

They go to a great deal of trouble over the headdresses, and every village has its own needle­woman who skillfully undertakes these projects, for the application of hundreds of cowries in specified patterns is doubtless an intricate job; the Kafir women carry their fortunes on their heads rather than faces. I tried on a Kafir gown and head-dress to be photographed in and my husband still insists that I must possess a hidden Kafir ancestry, for I seemed to blend admirably among the rest of the females. Among men the peculiarities of the Kafir dress are fast fading and the Chitrali ‘Chogha’ (woollen coat) and rolled up woollen cap (pakhol) are more in vogue.

By far the most fantastic aspect of the Kafirs was their unusual treatment of the dead. Fortunately for us we witnessed the ceremonies in connection with a wealthy Kafir’s death.  It was an occasion of much feasting and beating of drums punctuated by systematic wailings and lamentations from the women. The corpse was gaudily decorated in all its finery along with a string of bones and wheat festoons to indicate that the deceased was a generous man. Some speeches were made among the congregation and the dead man was addressed several times. In the coffin along with him, were placed his utensils, bow and arrow. Then the lid closed amid a burst of gunfire.

Kafir cemeteries are situated on rocky spurs, and the coffins merely left on top of them; many boxes had decayed with age, exposing their grim contents. I felt horrified at first to find skulls, femurs and eerie looking phalanges scattered about, and was all for collecting them reverently and putting them back among the decayed coffins. Gradually, however, I got quite used to the tit-bits so merrily strewn around, and even managed to repress a shocked scream when I saw a Kafir youth shooing goats out of the cemetery brandishing in his hand what my husband mercilessly referred to as “some one million dollar leg”.

Women being “unclean creatures’, were not allowed in a cemetery, and the two who had been trailing me around stood yards away grinning at my petrified survey of the decayed coffins and their contents. On one ridge was a newly hewn box with two wooden stones apart, and there was a clear suggestion of stench in the air. My companions shouted gleefully from the outskirts of the cemetery that it contained the remains of an important Kafir recently deceased. I moved away hastily trying to assume an ease of manner which I was far from feeling.

It was easy to identify male and female skeletons, for the cowry head-dresses lying in forlorn tatters around some weird looking skull indicated that the remains must be those of some blue eyed wench of the valley. Bows and arrows stood for the men who must have wielded them in their life time.

On asking a responsible Kafir the reason for not burrying their dead, the answer I received was short and precise, “Hardi Phat Boi”. This translated literally means, “the heart bursts with loneliness”. The Kafirs believe that underground darkness and depth makes the deceased feel lonely and frightened. Since I too consider this the most unpleasant part of dying, the Kafir sentiment received my whole-hearted support. I noticed that the shaley slopes of the cemeteries were wonderfully fertile, and vegetables like tomatoes, green pepper and marrows grew to exceptionally large sizes than in the ordinary fields. The Kafirs attribute this fertility to the good deeds of the dead, but we would be inclined to regard it as a natural phenomenon in consequence of rich organic matter poured into the soil, when nature’s law of ‘dust unto dust’ runs its course.

On the death of a wife, the husband, after feasting the village, goes into retirement for thirty days, a wife does the same thing for her husband. A year after the death of an adult, an effigy is erected in his memory over his coffin. The style of the effigy depends entirely on the amount of food to be distributed on the occasions, and also the outstanding characteristics of the deceased. A good horseman will have the image of a man astride a horse; a good archer will have an effigy with a bow and arrow. Some are fashioned to sit on chairs, the men are turbaned and the women adorned with the horned head dresses. The images are all carved on conventional models, with just axes and knives.

A very common way of commemorating the dead is by erecting effigies on the end of a pole supported by a pedestal. The poles which are square have horizontal bars indicating the number of homicides committed by the “late lamented”. Such effigies are usually erected in memory of warriors.

On my second visit to Kafiristan I found that the Kafirs of Rumbur Valley now bury their coffins, and very seldom erect an effigy. In fact, I hardly saw any effigies which could have been erected during the last twelve years or so.

The food they eat is very simple and for dietary reasons completely. Honey, walnuts, dried mulberries and apricots form daily items of food; besides which the cattle yield milk in large quantities and consequently ghee (clarified butter) and cheese are found in abundance, which also provides foodstuff. Corn is the main cereal cultivated; it is ground to flour and made into a batter and cooked on large iron griddles. The result is similar to the western pancake.

Spices are unknown; even salt is a much prized and scarce commodity, and like tea and sugar has to be brought across the mountains. Chitrali traders would take advantage of the Kafirs’ ignorance and poverty; barter salt, tea, and sugar etc. at the rate of a pound of tea to two bagsful of nuts; Chitralis own a number of walnut trees in the valleys too, which the Kafirs revealed had been sold for paltry sums of two or three rupees (2 shillings).

Marriages are not very complicated affairs. When a man wants to marry a particular girl, he settles the price with her father through a third party. Usually there is much haggling over this item. Only after the price has been fully paid, the bride-groom can bring the girl home. There are numerous cases of women having several babies and yet not be able to come home to their husbands’ home, because their price has not been fully paid.

Rarely one comes across a girl of twelve who is unmarried. All well-to-do Kafirs have more than one wife, the maximum allowed being five. A man with just the one wife is considered a nincompoop and a weakling and his opinions are not respected at all. In fact, at every juncture it is emphasised that how can a man with only one wife have the cheek to offer any opinion or take part in anything important.

The price of a bride entirely depends on the status of the bridegroom; if he is well off, ten cows, if poorly six cows, the utmost concession allowed. Divorce is easy; a man has to just send away his wife, or else sell her.

The Kafirs distill their own wines from the grapes.  My husband who tasted the stuff thought it was jolly good, except that it could be clarified more. During festivals and other occasions, the Kafirs go on a regular binge and indulge in orgies of drink and debauchery, the wine being extra strong and crude is very intoxicating. It is extracted from grapes which are crushed with feet in large wooden troughs, (they assured us that these live tools were well washed previously) then the juice poured off into large earthenware pitchers which are kept indoors near the fire for warmth. To me however, the stuff smelt vile though I was assured that its effects were quite the opposite.

The six weeks in Kafiristan passed all too quickly and I felt rather sad, as we packed up our kit and trudged back to Chitral. I wondered how much longer these quaint people would be allowed to retain their originality, and how to suggest to zealous authorities, that ‘civilization’ may be introduced in the forms of medicines, soap, tea, salt and other necessities of life, but need not take the form of conversion and discarding of original costumes and consequently annihilation of centuries old culture.

I came away with my mind full of the peculiarities of those people, and how much more could one unfold and discover about them, if one had the chance of living there for a year or two.

Their legends and folk lore have a western flavour to them too, as they are mostly based on fairies, animals, birds and plants. The collection I made is interesting as it reveals the dreamers and idealists in those people.

At the risk of becoming monotonous I would just like to add a few words about what I personally think of the much talked of Kafir beauty. I found this contradicted amply in all the valleys. Among exaggerated accounts of Kafir beauty is an Afghan saying, that a man’s most valuable possessions are a Balochi mare and a Kafir slave-girl.  Indeed, it’s not true. I can say without compunction that I did not see even a few outstandingly good-looking people in either of the three valleys. In fact, the inhabitants of Chitral are far superior in looks and physique. ‘Fabulous Kafir Beauty’ is merely a proverb or a legend; no doubt, they are extremely vivacious and radiate feeling of merriment. Some faces are found to be very fair end blue-eyed but they are hardly requisites of ‘fabulous beauties’.

As females the world over Kafir-belles are quite vain, and will go to any amount of trouble to make up their faces. The juice of a red berry called ‘pela-mik’ which grows profusely on the hillsides, is dabbed on spots along the line above the brows and below the eyes; the juice on drying turns a rich plum colour and stays put for many days. The effect produced is similar to the picture of goddesses in Hindu mythology. They go bare-foot, use walnut juice to stain their lips and ring their eyes heavily with black antimony and simply love jewellery. Any old buttons, beads, clips etc. are termed jewellery. They plait their hair into dozens of little strands and make a thicker plait down the centre of the brow, which is then looped back charmingly.

We had decided to spend all our time at Bomborat and visit Rumbor valley another time. On the termination of our six weeks, we took the same route back to Birir valley and from here decided to reach Drosh via Ghairat, a big village between Chitral and Drosh. After spending a night in Birir among old friends, we left early the next morning for Drosh. Our jeep was awaiting us in Ghairat. Funnily, this last seven miles proved to be the most tiring in this large and otherwise tedious journey.  We had covered entirely on foot. We accomplished it by walking over very narrow paths, which frequently ending by not being there at all. We had to negotiate the way on bare cliffs with precarious foot-holds, (impossible for horses and mules). A good three hours of alternately scrambling and walking accomplished this distance, which was referred to breezily by Matung as ‘Phonk sot meel’ (A mere seven miles).

We had to cross raging torrent several times, over what amounted to a mere apology for bridges, as they consisted of a rotten tree stump flung over the stream and a few stones on each end to keep balance. I had discarded my brogues long before we had finished the first lap of our journey into Kafiristan, I found myself to be quite nimble footed, clad in the locally made ‘Khons’ patronised by the inhabitants; they are very light, and especially useful on precarious footholds on bare-cliffs.

Thus ended the epic month in Kafiristan; unforgotten for its novelty and unforgettable for its inhabitants.

KHYBER PASS

Often when browsing through our newspapers, one reads of foreign visitors on a visit to Pakistan, who have been or are about to embark on a visit to the Khyber, Indeed, not a week passes when one does not hear or read of tourists, journalists, globe-trotters, or that new species of travellers who fancy

themselves on a “round the world tour on a jeepster or bicycle”, in fact, I don’t think that a single VIP is allowed to leave the country unless he has-been hauled around “the rugged and valiant haunts of the Afridis and Shinwaris”, as we are prone to term that area in a pathetic nostalgia of Kipling’s days.

I have often wondered what determines such an excursion and what actually induces us to bring our guests all the way across the Sindh desert, over Attock river, beyond the Peshawar Vale into the narrow rocky gorges of the Khyber, right upto its last outpost Torkham, only to gaze at a couple of blank-looking ill-clad Afghan sepoys facing our equally bored Khassadars. Is it so very necessary for the wellbeing of our guests to be thus taken to the very edge of our domains in the Khyber?

It is not a hard to visualise that perhaps similar excursions will be started by Bharat a decade or two hence, when visitors or tourists will be encouraged to come and gaze into Pakland across Wagah, just to round off an impression to foreigners about the curio value of this country, for, I feel this is exactly what impression the visitors – at least foreign ones – get when they gaze across the rusty chain barrier into Afghanistan,

A few well-worn reasons come to the rescue to explain this homage, as for Instance, (i) the road and the railway from Peshawar to Khyber is a feat of engineering;(ii) for centuries this has been the gateway for the invading hordes who ravished the sub-continent(iii) the famous Durand Line runs across it etc.

Granted all this is historic and very wonderful to us, but where does the charm for visitors lie? For even at the best of times the Khyber is not that spectacular, if anything it is inclined to pall with repetition.

Its constant patronage is but for the fact, that we in Pakistan are sadly lacking in developed tourist resorts; the potentialities in this field are immense though. If places like Kafiristan, Swat, Gullies etc are exploited to the full, they can be real showpieces and not lie ignored for want of tourist facilities – and can think of nothing better than to go lunging up the Khyber Pass over and over again, which reduces any sort of a visit, goodwill or otherwise, to a mere recce of that area.

For the benefit or rather solace of those, who have not visited this much eulogised beauty spot of Pakistan, let us trace the course of one such visit as is so tantalisingly featured in the papers. I beg to add however, that these are entirely personal reflections and do not pertain to any special visit or visitors either.

My reverie begins when I read an item that Mr. X and his party have arrived on a visit – good-will, trade talks, cultural visit etc. etc., and will during the course of their stay, visit the Khyber Pass. Usually Warsak is thrown in as a diversion, mostly I feel, to alleviate the monotony of existence of its Canadian residents. After Mr. X and party have been hauled around our various projects, (mostly on the verge of completion since the last decade) and sufficiently plagued with details regarding refugees, wheat, floods, factories, not to mention Kashmir, a real treat has been set in store for them in the form of a visit to the Khyber, and that is where our journey to the Khyber begins too.

A small fleet of cars leaves Peshawar moving north, since the guest will be a foreign and distinguished VIP, no effort will be spared to make it a memorable occasion. Usually the VIP will be accompanied by an equally important host, who will try and point out places and land-marks (of which he seldom knows much himself) to the chief guests. As the cars leave Peshawar and move onwards beyond the Khyber University, the Jamrud plain will be visible, dusty, barren and stony, on which the Jamrud fort stands looking like an old but noble battleship. Usually a few fierce looking men with slung rifles and a couple of sheep are seen standing beyond the barrier, which heralds the entry into the rugged land. The VIP is informed that the traditional tribal hospitality has begun, (the sheep being a mere token of the things to come).

Also it is conveyed in awesome tones, that henceforth begins the area of the noble and fierce tribes, and before partition it was not possible to thus proceed gaily into these regions without an armed escort etc etc. The VIP is suitably impressed; he has either got a garland round his throat or a dagger in his hands by now, alleged to be presented by some powerful Robin Hood of those regions.

A few miles beyond Jamrud the road starts winding up to the hills, and what hills pray? I have yet to see a set of more unattractive and colourless mounds of earth, than the hills of Khyber; the drive would be entirely devoid of interest. If a trifle diversion were not created by seeing the railway, which Is said to be a feat of engineering. I should think it must have been wizardry two decades ago, bur seems ordinary enough in the “Sputnik era”. However, if the visitors are lucky and happen to venture to Khyber on a Sunday, they may come across a. locomotive chugging and puffing reverberatingly as it gallantly hauls it’s train of bogies out of the maze of tunnels, like a large centipede, for the railway is indeed a skillfully laid track on difficult terrain, involving numerous tunnels and zig-zags in a giddy upward course.  The brave locomotive is just covered with human beings, often seen clinging like limpets, or else hanging by their eyebrows and holding on to each other for the love of life itself, for this squirming length of puffing vibration is the result of the fact, that no tickets have to be bought for this particular train which is a weekly phenomenon in the Khyber hills; hence this overcrowding.

This was primarily a legacy of our former rulers, and one of the many instances of the subtle methods employed for the moral disintegration of the unsophisticated hill giants, who gaily went to and fro as carriers of contraband goods that kept their minds off any sort of gunnery exploits. Why this practice continues after a decade of freedom is puzzling.

However, notwithstanding the train and its mass of occupants it is indeed an interesting spectacle if seen from the motor road. The train will seem one mass of humanity stretched in all positions behind the groaning engine. Suddenly, a loud shout, “Halakha Odregga!” ( Hey, Stop!) will reverberate among the hills and be heard well above the chugging of the engine, and as the train pants to a halt, even before the guard hurls the green signal, which he manages to accomplish  precariously with one hand on to the rear of this jolly train. A stalwart form will be seen leaping nimbly as a goat among the rocks: he will be gleefully hauled up to no one knows where, but soon loud shouts of ‘za’ will indicate to the driver that the new passenger has accommodated.

This thirty-mile journey from Peshawar to Khyber takes full four hours, as halts are frequent especially at the entrance of each tunnel where loud shrieks herald the approach of one, and the train is stopped in deference to the passengers riding atop, who all alight with lightning speed, and cheerfully resume their places when it emerges from the other end. There is no limit to passengers, in fact, the more the merrier.

Occasionally someone falls down by losing grip, but is retrieved after suitable curses are hurled at Pak railways etc. Frequently, first-aid is rendered on the spot and no one is much worse for it.

Resuming our journey in the motorcade of VIPs, we pass Ali-Masjid, a few miles downhill. It is name after our prophet’s cousin son-in-law. Further, the gorges stretch out slightly and on both sides of the road can be seen villages consisting of dull mud-washed structures with high turrets, to keep watch. On the way a stupa of the Buddha can be seen in the last stages of decay.

The whole area is highlighted by the fact, that not a vestige of greenery is visible, not a single man is seen working, and not a single woman is seen relaxing. The men with slung rifles are lolling in groups gossiping, or else gambling –  a popular pastime. The women mostly dressed in black will be seen hauling kerosene oil drums full of water, or else carrying loads of fire wood. A few idle kids will gleefully fling a fistful of pebbles and shout Pakistan Zindabad.

The VIPs, and on the whole, most of the hosts are by now thoroughly bored for the drive though a short one has been rather monotonous. All were looking forward to the more relaxing atmosphere of the Khyber-Rifles Mess, that stouthearted institution which offers unlimited hospitality and courtesy the year round to VIPs, lone-tourists, lost explorers and people who come to Khyber just because it is in vogue.

Soon the cars swing into the massive gates of the fort, where visitors are met by their hosts smiling with suppressed rage, if they have had to leave work and play the role of the enthusiastic host. However, the spirit of hospitality is gallantly kept up and the guests are led up the beautifully turfed garden towards the lounge. Here the routine begins:  the “not so important” guests in the retinue are affectionately shepherded towards the sun-clock by one of the gallant hosts, who grinning with fury, painstakingly explains its workings to a group of visitors who are standing around the clock out of sheer courtesy. Grinning with fury I say, because having done the same thing dozens of times, he knows the clock inside out and upside down with eyes shut. Adding fuel to his smiling wrath is the fact that his listeners are bored stiff.

Meanwhile, the more important guests have signed the visitors book and on being shown the signature of Churchill and Roosevelt dating to antiquity, they try to appear suitably impressed. After a round of drinks, lunch etc. – the estimated cost of which must make our brave hosts wince with pleasure, all troop out on the last lap of the excursion.

On such occasions ordinary Pakistan food is termed as “typical tribal luncheon”; this term is merely added because of the inclusion of ‘tikkas’, otherwise a

there is nothing typically tribal about the good old ‘pulao’, roast chicken and trifle pudding.

The drive to Torkham consists of a series of zig-zags and the scenery has nothing to commend it, except that at a place called Michni – when the suitable moment arrives – a five rupee note is flicked out by one of the hosts (such a contingency is always anticipated and no host in his right mind will start without arming himself with at least one fiver) and the visitors asked to note the reproduction of the panorama spreading ahead of him, and its counterpart on the note, realising that the Khyber has been immortalised by the State Bank in the form of a five  rupee note. The visitor tries to appear ‘staggered with admiration’ and applauds this hitherto unthought-of of idea. The note is passed around for the benefit of other visitors with the owner looking on wistfully.

Soon the cars reach Torkham where hosts and guests stand and gaze at the Afghan sentries across the barrier, and try to muster delighted exclamations on their first view of Afghanistan, which territory by the way, is exactly like its Pakistani counterpart this side of the barrier.

So finishes the trip, hosts and guests, both wending their way back thankfully. Occasionally, a trip is taken to the caravan serai at Landikotal, whose authenticity and antiquity are confirmed by the shocking squalor visible all over it; dogs, Powindah’s, camels, flies, amalgamating into the tantalising picture of curios across the border, and that is about all.

Soon the motorcade starts back for Peshawar,  much to the mutual relief of hosts and guests; one cannot help thinking what stands out most about this trip: a wandering historian, a geographer or even some out of date militarist my out of sheer reminiscence want to visit the Khyber, but to make it a Mecca for  visitors is surely not necessary, for in the jet and atomic era the Khyber is no longer the world’s most important highway and to term it so only tends to give a false sense of importance to our misguided neighbours in  Kabul.

The  Annexation of Gwadar

An important trip of national significance that took place during the tenure in Makran was the annexation, or rather the amalgamation of the free port of Gwadar. This desolate fishing village is situated on the extreme end of the Makran coast and to the visible eye was a much neglected habitation of the state. As a matter of fact, Gwadar was the base of a very large scale smuggling of goods from the Gulf. The shabby bazaar had nondescript shops, teeming with every king of electronic goods, fabrics, china, hard liquor like Black Dog and White Horse.  Also in plentiful were consumer goods like Cadbury chocolates, biscuits – large tins of Peak Freans; hard and soft liquor. Besides all this the gold trade flourished actively. Launches owned by eminent personages arrived openly from Karachi and left loaded with contraband. The privileged few had no qualms to say the least, about the affect such manner of trade had on an embryo economy of a newly emerged country, barely into the first half decade of its existence. The days of Qasim Bhatti (smuggler) and his patriots flourished for a while like all booms do.

Gwadar, until that period belonged to the Sultanate of Oman, which itself was a British protectorate, represented by an Englishman Mr. Bell. At that time its population all over did not exceed 10,000. Being a free port it was a natural haven for smuggling.

The events of the take-over of Gwadar by the Government of Pakistan were recorded in a private journal – few discreet deletions notwithstanding. The event recalled maybe of some interest even now.

Plans were completed by July 1958. The late Mr. Feroz Khan Noon was in the seat of the Prime Minister. Gwadar’s annexation was made expedient by the fact that besides gold and goods, gun-running and subversive activities had been reported. A plan was drawn up and all intelligence data gathered about the free port. The Englishman Mr. Bell administered the area on behalf of Oman. There was an old Portuguese gun in the dilapidated fort, plus sixty rifles of 303 calibre.

Since the annexation had to be conducted as discreetly as possible, the Col. painstakingly mapped out an invasion strategy. Only in case of resistance, attack would be resorted to and that too with minimum loss.

The Prime Minister was keen to see the Col. and confirm intelligence and operational reports from him personally. Consequently, the Col. left for Karachi along with the senior area commander, a general. The Col. recalled later that the Prime Minister was in a jovial mood; was apprised of the terrain and equipment of the so called ‘aliens’, and had a good laugh on being told that the 60 guns had never been fired and would do no harm as long as they were aimed at us!

The Prime Minister gave his blessing in an expressive Punjabi idiom, “Charhjao, Agha Sahib”, which in turn elicited a hearty guffaw – quickly suppressed – for it was unseemly to reciprocate jovial familiarity towards those in lofty positions.

On return to Panjgoor, the sandy garrison town of Mekran, the operation was well rehearsed on a sand model and even in the form of extensive practical rehearsal. The plan was to attack with 200 troops under cover of darkness. They would start from PHULERI, north of Gwadar, at 3 a.m.; walk through the air strip on to the Gwadar fort itself, then split, the troops, each half going east and west to meet in the village and occupy the fishtail, where the sweet water wells existed. Another mound north of Gwadar would be occupied to ensure complete surrender, the entire action completed in three hours.

The Col. and his force of 200 took off from Panjgoor in the Land Rover and some trucks. A pack of camels followed to make it appear a normal ‘gasht’ (routine travelling). Few people knew the actual date and strength of the attack force. The Col.’s residence being ‘establishment’ at that time in Makran, I was aware of the proceedings. The wireless and phones were revved up and amidst private good wishes to ‘win the war’, the erstwhile force set out to add to the dominions of this pure, fair land. Those meek and poverty stricken people who had survived generations of hardship and scarcity in this vast desolate terrain, where groves of date palms at formidable distances were the only greenery visible, from which they eked out a bare living, along with gleanings of the massive smuggling, were not expected to put up too much of a resistance.

As the force deployed itself on the night of July 26, 1958, waiting for the go ahead signal due at 2.30 a.m., the excitement of the levees aside – as all of them had been to and from Gwadar when on leave, this kind of trip was the only way they could survive.

The expected signal never arrived. Instead daylight brought a message to call off the carefully planned operation, as an amicable agreement had been arrived and the Gwadar operation was now a ‘financial deal’. Money had changed hands and the port was acquired like a piece of real estate. I doubt if anyone was stricken enough to exclaim as in the case of British-Sikh transaction of Kashmir: “Chi arzaan farokhtand!”, (how cheaply the bargain clinched). The beautiful valley was lost to us forever in that one transaction. In Gwadar’s case the Omani Sultanate may have had a moment or two of regret, which was nothing compared to vast profits made in contraband trade in another country without obligation to the poor population and their basic human needs. Three days later the Col. with a platoon in tow entered the town – looking like any other fishing village on the coast – towards the bazaar and the old Portuguese fort, standing as a bastion to its past history, and also to proclaim that the harbour town merited some defence, being the gateway of some importance in the distant past.

Simultaneously, with the entry of Makran Militia, PNS BABAR, destroyer of the Pakistan naval fleet, carrying top civil brass of the government, arrived complete with band and naval contingent. The ship anchored six miles out at sea.

Meantime the arrangements for flag hoisting were made while Mr. Bell the – now former – administrator waited impassively at his residence, a Royal Navy launch ready and anchored with his belongings.

The cabinet secretary, Agha Hamid, accompanied by senior naval staff, was the first to arrive. This journey from ship to shore was of singular variety. They left the destroyer in a launch, halfway changed into a country-craft and in the third stage – far from pompous – the distance was covered by riding astride hired coolies.

Including the band-group, it was a wet and sorry looking contingent that tried to simulate good cheer on being received by an already fed up Col. and honour guard, plus a Deputy Commissioner. The party looked like drenched rats. At the time a victorious mission, it proceeded to the residence of John Bell, who had meantime cleared his office and rooms of all official cum personal affects.

As the conquerors stepped up the verandah, Mr. Bell emerged, a very tanned and wiry looking man, wearing a floppy hat and grubby shorts. Walking up to the oncoming group, he asked abruptly, “Are you reps of the Pakistan government?”. Hearing the affirming reply, he said, “Here is Gwadar, I am off, goodbye”, jumped on an awaiting coolie towards the country craft and thence to his launch.

The Cabinet Secretary, a senior bureaucrat could just say, “Bara battamiz hai”! (very rude indeed!). To the victors, deflated and not a little embarrassed such uncouth behavior in front of a large gathering of troops and locals, was a far cry from the cordial and exchange of goodwill speeches expected by them. Bell did not even bid farewell to his Muscat cronies loitering around. This could easily be the briefest annexation or takeover of foreign territory in the life of Pakistan.

To exorcise John Bull’s ungracious exit, it was decided to get on with the flag-hoisting ceremony as already a large crowd had gathered. A hastily rigged up pulley for the flag was creaked to a halt half-way up the pole and the halyard was pushed up with much effort.

The Cabinet Secretary gave a speech declaring Gwadar to be henceforth Pakistan territory. With that the naval band broke into the national anthem; thus was completed the desert campaign for the glory and greatness of the country.

The same evening the Col. and the Deputy Commissioner were invited to PNS BABAR for dinner to mark the occasion of the celebration. The same ridiculous mode of transport – astride panting coolies – was used up to the country-craft and onwards to the launch and up towards the awaiting feast on the ship. The Col. very wisely, after witnessing the sorry spectacle of the Karachi contingent, donned a pair of shorts and got his coolie to carry the overnight bag of the uniform he would wear aboard ship, and changed when he reached the launch.

The Deputy Commissioner, an old world gentleman from Mianwali, was disgusted that his starched shalwar kameez suit should turn limp and soggy as a rag. Mr. Bell’s atrocious behaviour was avoided as a topic of conversation, except to say that he was rather ‘battamiz’ (ill mannered).

Next day a commercial ship DUMRA arrived from Karachi with traders and shop owners who came, pockets bulging with currency notes to make wholesale of entire shops. Hindu and Ismaili traders were most unhappy with the change-over and would not sell their shops to the Karachi based group, so that bulk purchases were made instead.

Gwadar had no sanitation to speak of and ‘smugglers’ paradise’ aside, it was a miserable place to live in. Fresh water supply was scarce and dependent on rain water, stored earlier in the solitary wel1 inside the Portuguese fort.

At first light or crack of dawn, the villagers would spread out on the coast in time for ebb-tide, man, woman and child to relieve themselves. With daylight the incoming tide would wash the coast clean.

The Resident’s house was on an elevation when the visiting traders had thus flocked the village. Fresh water tins sold for Rupees two and four, a goodly sum in those days; that, also with the addition of sea-water. This resulted in the spread of a grave diarrhea epidemic, with the result that an event that had been zestfully looked forward to with a spirit of adventure and profitable bargaining, turned into a nightmare with no medical facilities available.

Life is still tough for the people of Gwadar. I am recalling an event over thirty-six years old. At times I have wanted to retrace my steps on the sandy wastes, just to see what improvements, if any, have been wrought in the lives of the local population. There are numerous agencies working for the uplift of those far flung areas. I wonder if they actually have schools, hospitals, transport and above all, roads, or after surrendering the title of free port, are the folks of Gwadar still as far away from the basics of living as before, and maybe even now have to exist on their precarious deals of contraband and date crops, which do little in ameliorating their lives of drudgery.

With the passage of time several agencies have brought in development schemes to maximize date-farming and packaging. Besides scouting for oil and fresh water in the vast smooth tracts of khakhi patches known as KUPS, carries on. Some of these KUPS are several miles long and wide. Folklore and legend has it that fresh water and oil are in abundance within these tracts of hard earth surrounded by sands. Nature in its own time will reveal these treasures, but this pot of gold has been elusive till the time of this writing.

Lady Irwin College, Delhi

It is not easy to write a few recollections of what at one period had been a most important time in one’s life. I could go on and on and yet not capture the quality of life at Lady Irwin College four decades ago; indeed, if a seer had predicted that I, Nayyar Khan would be participant – even from afar – of the golden jubilee of this beloved place, where I was a lively and often tiresome student forty years ago, I would have shrugged the prediction off lightly, but here I am, having lived through the halcyon stormy stages of life.   Occasionally, a peaceful alcove arrives and one finds respite however short; one pause is the news of LIC’s golden jubilee, and so if one lives long enough and human relations retain the sap of warmth, one is privileged to return to the scenes of days gone by.

A cassette clicks in the mind’s eye and I am transported to that jolly, unworried and in retrospect, one of the happiest periods of my rather uneventful life. In the early forties LIC was an exclusive institution, the only one of its kind in India, known as the college for Domestic Science, the two end three years courses were deceptively extensive an included subjects like Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

I had joined in the Late August of the year 1941, fresh from the restricting precincts of a convent in Kashmir. Rolls of puppy fat, face aglow with rude red health, proclaimed me a freshman on sight. My admission was belated and that due to father’s contact with Mr. B.K. Nehru, whose wife prevailed on Mrs. Hannah Sen to make an exception to a latecomer after the specific admissions had been completed.

So the odyssey began. I was given a room temporarily in the guest room of Lady Willingdon. Cottage, known better as the ‘Richman’s House’, much to the envy of senior students and amidst floods of tears on my part, for Delhi was a long way from home and the secure bell-ringing regime of the convent nuns.  The lofty loneliness of my room was further aggravated by the fact that most inmates seemed older, that much smarter and confident, with sophisticated, liberated life styles, a complete reversal to the austere, regimented and much, much simpler environment of the convent.

I cannot recollect how quickly I turned into an Irwinite and with how much ease, but it seemed like a few weeks and I dived headlong into the happy, novel, carefree and extremely interesting life of the college and hostel.

Lady Irwin was many faceted; the college and hostel pivoted round the staff, students and servants who had evolved a style which must have been unique at the time. I could not convey this to my last year, when after a forty year spell I revisited Delhi and hence Lady Irwin, that places don’t change people do, or its mutual, changing people change places as well, For in the ‘forties’ LIC was not only the premier institute of its kind, patronized by the Imperial Vicerene and the stately Crown Princess of Berar Durre-Shahwar, but it was on existence,  unique to its students,  mostly comprising of boarders from all corners  of India. Life within was exclusive to them and did not include the few day scholars, contact with whom was brief in class.

Here in LIC were girls from all parts of India, many languages spoken, different types of dresses worn. The staff was no less varied. Friendly and plump Mrs. Hannah Sen, the Principal, who unerringly knew the students by face; a protective hug by her now and then promptly dispelled any blues of my world, for she had much compassion behind her thick spectacles. Mrs. Tarabai, the ever smiling, more accessible Vice-Principal, indulgently overlooked our childish pranks. The two young professors Devalkar and Doongajee, fresh from courses in the United States; there pronounced American accents were mimicked to perfection by jolly Meena Desai during classes. Soft, gentle Mrs.  Attawar who never raised her voice and ended all sentences by ‘so and so forth’.

Not to be forgotten Miss Matthews, the petite professor, who despaired of ever making us the proverbial green-fingered gardeners; she taught Biology as well. Dear Miss Pillay, whose room on the ground-floor was reached through a corridor; much used as it ran parallel to the dining hall and also had the mail-board which would, be eagerly scanned by the hostel inmates. Then Nani-Kuty, a very competent South Indian physicist; her name was a novelty at first which wore off soon. She was a serious person and did not give or allow margin for laxity in her subject,

Not to be forgotten, elderly Mrs. Mody, the sewing Don who knew which of us was going to do serious lesson in needlework and cutting and who was going to while away the period. Rumour had it that she had an unmarried son, so anyone showing extra keenness in lazy daisy or cutting of baby garments etc.  was lightly jibed for catching the old teacher’s eye. There was hardly a serious moment and once classes were dismissed our exclusive hostel existence took over.

As I wound my way unerringly to the left gate with my daughters and grand-daughters, the gate was barred with overgrown brambles and weeds.  The two cottages looked shabby; they appeared so grand during our time. The right gate was the main entrance. We went in and reached the Principal’s office. Few buildings had come up, but the offices, cottages and hostels were the same. I peeped into the little room where Mr. Single, the Bengali clerk sat forty years ago. Large, rotund and soft-spoken, he dealt with all the business of fees, correspondence etc.  It was not an uncommon yell from one of us through the hostel, “So and so, Mr. Single wants you! “, laying emphasis on the word ‘single’.

Lady Willingdon Cottage was now a canteen and housed an extensive library: the librarian provided a charming note of nostalgia by turning out all old college magazines and papers and many forgotten names and faces wore recalled. I took the children to the first floor of the hostel and showed them my room, not the imposing structure of forty years ago but a forlorn looking place, as also the roof-top.  From here we waved to the Bombay Mail as it gathered speed, Katy Maneckshaw using a bucket for the purpose. The passengers waved back as vigorously. There were two windows through which, tiny Leila slithered down surreptitiously in company of another truant to buy sweets from the Bengali Market for which our group had pooled up.  Downstairs used to be the Common-Room, where a huge radio stood in one corner.  It blared out western music and. most evenings the girls collected for dancing, Carmen Miranda screaming’ I I I I love you very much – you are too, too, too divine’, Noreen would be swinging to the Rumba and the newly introduced Tango. She was as graceful on the dance­ floor as in the sports field.

Yes, LIC was a way of life. It was Raj Thapur, beautiful and vivacious, a smile so devastating it sent the lads of St Stephan swooning and sighing. No debating team was complete without her. She sat through the sessions being our star attraction.  LIC was tall Izzat Ahmed, cool and lotus-eyed, whose subtle humour and composed exterior gave a semblance of strength and solidarity to our private group. LIC was also glamorous Florence Horowitz, a senior third year student whose stunning good looks attracted Americans in long limousines.  LIC was an adult institution and much trust was reposed in the students. LIC was gentle, soft-spoken Yvonne Godfrey, the head girl whose manners and concern for her flock went beyond rank and age. LIC was a many splendoured Shangri-la and its golden era was surely the ’40s of this century. Though academically it has far more to offer now, the fourth decade was one in which staff and students combined in a fashion to produce a special atmosphere of that era.

LIC was also the gentle, raven haired Bina Roy whose lustrous black hair was attributed to the coconut oil bath she firmly adhered to. It was also K.B Gauri in her Coorgi dress and devoid of expression. She was ‘oh so intellectual’.  It was Rachel Kuriyan, smiling and much in lobby for ‘head-girl’ slot next year. There was Khorshed Adenwalla from Bombay, tall, hazel-eyed and glamorous with an 18-inch waist. One was proud of her when she presided at the college functions, being the union secretary. And of course, LIC had its batch of naughty girls who played havoc with hostel rules, but seldom got away undetected. After all the college was a confluence of many diverse cultures and geographic labels; from Malayalam speaking girls to Gujarati, Bengali, English, Urdu and of course Punjabi speaking individuals. I doubt if the political arena ever consisted of such a complete representation of Indian peoples as LIC.

No account would be complete without mention of Daniel, a tall, dusky, dashing Goan waiter, to whom each of’ us was ‘Missy-baba’.  He was supposed to know the sort of eggs we liked for breakfast and our capacity for food. The dining hall would be a bedlam of loud cries all addressed to Daniel who would be clad in a snowy white jacket and the recipient of loud assurance. “Daniel, I love you!  Ami tumake bhalu Bashi, Tanne Prem Karun Choon”. This affectionate sentence would be yelled out in all languages but Urdu and left dear Daniel completely unruffled as he rushed around with second helpings and special tit-bits: He was held in much affection by all of us and cooperated discreetly in the smuggling out of chapatties(flat bread) or curries when groups of six or four would take up residence in the two cottages meant to teach us house-keeping.

After mundane household chores of scrubbing, interior decoration and spring-cleaning, we found preparing meals a great burden, and who could be bothered to cook chapattis, but the fear of a staff member dropping in to call on us was ever there and hence Daniel’s help was priceless.

Another very conspicuous personality was tiny Sara Anne, the Ayah who swathed herself in a style that left only a little chimpanzee face exposed. Sara Anne extracted as many tips as possible from, girls and visitors alike; she seemed to know exactly who the visitor was: a father, brother, fiancé or a country cousin!  Her knowledge of our activities was uncanny; none of us welcomed her prying presence; however, she provided Matron with information now and then which would surf ace up to a battle of wits. I don’t remember where she ate or slept but Sara. Anne was very much around all the time.

LIC (Lady Irwin College) was also frequent visits to Connaught Place, abbreviated to CP. a spacious, gracious shopping centre, much roamed by Irwinites. Three first year students were chaperoned by one third year student.  Two second year students were privileged to go alone. The third year would go out solo, for they sat on the Olympus of LIC and were free to take late passes to move round on their own, but maintained a decorum at all times for it was a fact that LIC had their identity for their style and élan.  In spite of the many other colleges and institutions in Delhi, Lady Irwin College was individual and unique.

Although the ravages of world war II had not touched India in the early 40s, its effect was felt in other activities, indeed, if anything there was boom in many spheres of life and the marriage sections flourished no less, for the country’s military establishment, was turning out King’s commissioned officers by the hundreds and though known as emergency commissioned officer, they provided gallant, uniformed bridegrooms to a new generation of females. The biggest boom, I repeat was in the marriage market. The Illustrated Weekly of India, Onlooker etc. wore ample proof of Irwinites being much in the forefront of this crusade. Nevertheless, shortage of items like cake, charcoal etc. cut the cookery classes drastically, for in those not so long ago days, we were still operating colonial native modes of kitchen craft. The grinder stone was very much in use and I for one was heartily sick of the many spices which required being ground to a paste before any sort of cooking could commence, for in the North where I came from spices were not so important. In western cookery the ‘creaming’ of butter fat end beating stiff egg-whites was the bane of life. I for one was not sorry that these activities had been curtailed to the minimum.

Pearl Harbour was a game changer and heralded the lavish carefree life-style of the Americans. The English were disregarded more and more as trend-setters of the west. With the advent of the Americans whose utter disregard for money would astound us, as they forked out 10 and five rupee notes blithely to tonga-walas, whose maximum expectation would be no more than two rupees, eating places started catering to American taste. We stopped going to Wenger, our favourite tea and pastry shop: instead, we visited Kawality as Hamburgers were all the rage. We exclaimed at the marvelous innovations of a mince cutlet placed between a slit bun topped by a ring of onion and tomatoes; then the whole smothered with Ketchup.  And of course, ice-cream, for which the Americans had earned world-wide fam.  Forty years later I found Kawality, a chain of eating places all over the Indian towns.

LIC had its debating and dramatic societies. Untidy, lovable Parvati Memon would be putting across some of the finest oratory with confidence and broad grins. Roopa was tall and bespectacled, speaking more in measured tones. The debating team was the finest in Delhi and would beat St. Stephan hollow in any controversy. The dramatic society put a play each year besides occasional pantomimes. Eminent personalities visited the college and I had the privilege of meeting several politicians.  Madame Chiang Kai Shek’s visit caused much excitement. We were presented with a packet each of Jasmine tea, yours truly being an irresponsible but enthusiastic Assistant Secretary of the College Union. Princess Durreshahwar of Berar, the Nizam’s daughter in law was remembered for her overpowering personality-and the six-inch long signature she gave to autograph seekers. Seasonal invitations to Viceregal Lodge were extended to Irwinites. The garden party was preceded by much meticulous preparat­ions, saris exchanged and borrowed.  The LIC lot was a smart one indeed.

My meanderings may seem disjointed but it was a time of responsibility as well.  The two-year course imparted much education and equipped us to compete for Bachelors or Masters in many subjects. Hostel life was lively to say the least. The dining hall was laid out for eastern and western style of eating. For two weeks half the students sat on tables and chairs, waited upon the tireless Daniel, the other half sat on low tables with foot stools (chowki-style) to sit upon. There would be an occasional hassle about ‘ halal’ and ’jhatka’, the two forms of slaughtering animals for meat. Having barely six Muslim girls, the field were won by the Sikh girls. To the rest, Hindus, Christians and Parsis, it did not natter. Ironically, something happened to the food and after a general uproar, the ‘halal’ form of slaughter was reverted to; the Sikh girls did not mind, but I remember the few Muslims turned vegetarian during the short switch over. The infirmary was on the third floor; each month different section leaders were allotted their lot of helpers. One of my more mischievous activity was to take up a sick-room tray decorated with a huge foliage yanked from one of the larger vases. It looked ridiculous, but I was complying with instructions of always serving invalids food complete with a posy of flowers.  The staff shook their heads in askance.  We ‘juniors’, as we were referred to, needed a mature hand to control our juvenile spirits. Raj, self and Leila were the considered juniors, in our group we needed restraint as the more mature degree holders. This of course propelled us to further mischief. The old night chowkidar (guard) had strict instructions to report any lights on after 11 p.m. so the first blink would herald the approach of bed time at 10.30 p.m. But we simply had to change, wash, brush our teeth and exchange notes. When the second blink occurred at 11 p.m. we were as unprepared for bed as at dinner time.

To the warnings from the old man calling out from the grounds below, the pat reply would be that we were at prayer.  The dear old soul would be pacified at our sanctimonious excursions. When this happened once too frequently he was obliged to call up and say that prayers of this sort would surely land us to Hajj at the Bara Memsahib (Mrs. Sen). This at once put a stop to make belief worship.

Sometimes, the giggling and romping would seep through to the two professors living on the first floor, Mathews and Nani-Kuty, a funny name for us but we got used to it. They would waddle over and admonish us saying that this particular room was the root of all disturbances.  After a while South Indian names did not sound strange, for LIC was also Thangama Phillip, affectionately known to us as Thungajee. Petite and tiny to say the least, she was a brilliant student, always ready with a broad smile to guide us into more serious avenues of study, May be she and Bina Roy bad been hinted at to keep an eye on our studies, which seemed to suffer more in LIC which by now was more a place for enjoyment and amusement for us. Raj Thapur and self were the two rowdy ones. Raj came from a prosperous Calcutta family and arranged lavish outings for the ‘group’ as we were called. It included Saroop Razdan who spoke faultless English.

Every Sunday a peddler would lay out his wares in one corner of the hostel grounds: fabric, toiletries, haberdashery etc. After loudly proclaiming his wares, he would soften his tone to a discreet whisper which sounded like ’sandwiches’ but actually meant sanitary towels, for it was a time of modesty and decorum and although undergarments and sundry items were sold they were modestly camouflaged.  The old peddler was privately referred to as the “Sandwich Man”.

I want to go on and on but I fear this has been a haphazard long-winded account, but how do you retrace your steps in the unstable country of ‘age’. The mind is equipped with strong binoculars and we reach out as much as we can. Those of us at LIC at that period of time have gone through traumas in life which may seem exclusive to us, but are actually common to all human beings. -The grounds, rooms, corridors which boomed and thumped with our presence have changed inmates many times over, but the particulars and event of those years is exclusively ours.  We cannot even pass it on as things have changed irrevocably. For this exclusive right to a period of time one feels   special and privileged as it belongs to us and for those memories alone one says out loud God Bless Lady Irwin, may its pinnacles reach much grander heights than the madcap events I have related about my sojourn there. Amen.

Much Ado About Nothing

It was the winter or rather early spring of 1961, late February, and much excitement was generated by the impending arrival of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II. The Commonwealth flourished and the Queen’s visit was the cause of frantic signalling and ‘bandobast’ (arrangements) in several cantonment stations. The retinue was large and consisted of some who had a personal or sentimental mission to accomplish in the former great dominion of this faraway land, and were included when the journey began from Whitehall.

I keenly looked forward to a few days in Lahore. After all, Queen Elizabeth was the first reigning monarch to visit the sub-continent since independence and the charisma of the British royalty still set some hearts fluttering. The desire to see her former Raj domain merited this trip. In some ways one related the Queen as a contemporary in age and times. Since the beginning of childhood from the late 20s, the royal family was a familiar frame as the years went by.

The Col., who was posted in Sialkot also anticipated a few days’ break in Lahore as the Horse and Cattle show, had been for some time, a major event in spring, not to speak of the exciting polo matches. Also this was his last stint before moving onto a secondment (temporary transfer) at Karachi. Lahore was a mere one-and-a-half-hour drive from our cantonment in our comfortable salon Chevrolet. Our trip was quite set.

When, oh when in my life time will a reigning monarch of Great Britain, whose ancestors had ruled India for two hundred years would visit Lahore again? I sat at my desk making out notes of what instructions had to be given like the minor pleasant jobs of entertaining a spillover of the royal visit.

Letters arriving at Station Headquarters from GHQ (General Headquarters) indicated that a certain Mrs. Spurgeon would be visiting the station on a sentimental journey and as personal guest of the C in C. (Commander in Chief). Capt. Spurgeon, having died here in service, his wife wished to visit and lay flowers at his …….?  That was the catch, and it had got the station into a spin. The trip to Lahore was cancelled when C-in-C’s (Commander in Chief) office rang up to say Mrs. Spurgeon would be a personal guest of the Station Commander during her brief visit to the Station.

I was accustomed to such abrupt change of plans. Cancelling the much looked forward trip to Lahore one reconciled to the ‘call of the drum’ as they would say in army jargon.

Three and a half decades ago there were no perks like TV cables beaming instant events or show VIPs in high profile.  At the most we had radio commentaries or snips of newsreels shown in local cinemas. Besides, of course, newspapers covered events pictorially.

I sighed. The last few years had not been much fun.  Too much of ‘follow the drum’ and too little security.  To exorcise the demon of frustration, I took a walk towards the church, a lovely gothic structure with acres of grassy land and old trees that soothed. The next day, the Col. personally instructed the SSO (Station Staff Officer) to get the church and grounds spruced up, and even had a posse of men sent out to see the cemetery in moderate shape. The administrative machinery came into action.

The padre, an obese local from the outskirts, used the churchyard like his village. His wife was a huge female, twice the girth of her spouse.  She thought nothing of grazing her buffaloes in the church grounds.  The Station issued a stipend for the maintenance of the church and cemetery. One look at both places was enough to reveal where the funds went. Apparently, reprimands were the order of the days and taken little notice of. This station is one of the greenest of cantonments and most building, including bungalows, were set in large, sprawling grounds with grass waist high, a boon for the milk sellers and their saucy Gujjar wives.

It had been an unusually beautiful winter in 1961 – blue skies and green fields. The grass in the churchyard was mowed, and the cemetery cleaned of chickweeds and camel shrub, church cleaned up under threats of dire consequences from the Col.  The Padre needed a good box on his obese self. The SSO (Station Staff Officer) and the Admin Commandant, the two most important persons in the Station hierarchy, went personally to see that all the nooks and crannies, plus the plaques, some wood, some brass and marble, were given a thorough clean up.

Names emerged on the church walls from years long gone by; of people who held sway and worked diligently and were later commemorated for their good work and sagacious deeds of valour. The cemetery was likewise cleaned and a semblance of order came to the place. The church interior interested me and I did my bit in the flower section, rather the foliage. Old hymn and prayer books and even the organ was cleaned and polished.

All the graves were scrutinized, the damaged ones repaired, the headstones scrubbed to decipher the names, but look how they might, there was no sign of Capt. Spurgeon’s grave. Amongst the older, late nineteenth and twentieth century, were much dilapidated and many without headstones. But where, oh where was Capt. Spurgeon who had passed on in the late 1930s?

In true martial tones the Padre was told to ‘produce’ the grave or else face reprisals and disgrace. That unfortunate upstart had already disposed of his buffaloes and family to the village and was seen the whole week in his cleric coat and after a shout from the Col., even tied the rosary round his bloated torso, heartily hating himself for his lack of grace. For all his efforts his older members of his flock exchanged nostalgic remarks about how the ‘Ferangis’ (the British) carried the cloth with grace, in fact, were never seen without it in church. The padre would writhe in hues of purple, charcoal and mahogany before his flock that in turn would be beaming in clothes of screaming yellows, scarlets, shocking pink and parrot green.  All looked forward to what they considered one of their own ilk. At last a real memsahib was coming to put the noses of the local Mems out of joint, as was true generally speaking.

Still, no grave and a mere thirty-six hours left for the calamity to befall them. By this time, the burly Col. was a worried man and in deep discussion with his staff on the verandah of his bungalow. I was indirectly tuned in to the enigma.

The ‘pastor’, if he deserved such a lofty title, was in cahoots with the SSO, (Station Staff Officer) a pleasant, distinguished man, commissioned from JCO (Junior Commissioned Officer) rank. Marvelous in smoothing out obstacles in the name of ‘bandobast’, (arrangements) the Captain put forward a plan sotto voce. The plan was of erecting a grave overnight and plastering it so it would look old. The tablet would be fixed in no time as he knew where to get the right scribes!! This was the last brilliant scheme which the Padre was allowed to voice.

A strangled roar and much purple language indicated the pastor had been ordered back to his parish precincts. What if the widow, who had crossed the billows for this pilgrimage, discovered the ruse?

The Col.’s gaze met mine. We had thought of the same thing. Let’s do a systematic search of all the graves and plaques. At the same time, he rang up a close colleague at GHQ to find out what actually happened to the tiresome Captain who had thus disturbed our peace. It was agreed that I comb out the Church and. cemetery, while the Col. ferrets out whatever he can from the coterie in charge of the various members of the Queen’s team. There were exactly twenty-four hours left for the visitor’s arrival.

After a thorough scrutiny, no trace of Capt. Spurgeon’s resting place. All the graves were marked; some old some very old. Not a single grave was without its occupant, an expatriate. Entering the church, I lost count of time. The Padre had been told to have the belfry cleaned up thoroughly. I started with the Roll of Honour. Standing on a small stool, I inspected the plaques of various vintages in marble, wood and brass.  All had been dusted or polished right up the nave going around to the other side, the length of the church.

On hearing a car approach, the SSO stepped outside. At the very moment my eyes alighted on the elusive plaque which had defied discovery and now gleamed back triumphantly. The late Capt. stood out as having died in service of King and country before WWII in the summer. The dates were of a peacetime period in the summer season, so he could have died of diarrhea or sunstroke. As I read the plaque avidly, in a clatter of boots the Col. entered beaming, followed by the SSO. Thank the Lord for friends who had ferreted the information that Capt. Spurgeon had served in Sialkot on a project, on the completion of which he had returned. The plaque had been put up by his wife in memoriam of his stay in the Station. As all this torrent was related in relieved tones I pointed to the tablet which had been the cause of so much harassed discussion and activity, not to mention the extraordinary working of the Padre’s mind on the line of action.

The next day Mrs. Spurgon arrived, was taken round the church and met the Padre and his flock who were flushing purple and enjoyed to have a genuine Memsahib visiting them wearing a ‘sola topee’ (sun proof hat). I met her in the horse shoe shaped garden of our house for tea and later lunch.  A stout lady who much appreciated being made a fuss of, she gave me a picture of her picturesque cottage in Cotswold where she was a Justice of Peace. A much older person than I, she was full of her days in India, and said she had specially asked permission to accompany the royal entourage for this purpose. She would have no idea of the waves this apparently smooth visit to the church caused, and cost me my visit to Lahore to wave to the Queen.

After an enjoyable two hours, the C-in-C’s guest left by car for Lahore where the late Capt. Capt. Spurgeon was actually posted when he had died in the late Thirties.

Late in the afternoon I ambled towards the churchyard. Inside, the altar had fresh flowers and candles.  Capt. Spurgeon’s plaque flaunted a wreath of evergreens, so much for a bit of wall in a church being forever England. Needless to say the Padre had spruced up no end. We managed to retrieve the enormous Bible which lay rotting in the cellars and had been presented when the church was consecrated. This huge tome was sent to Karachi for repairs as the termites had attached it cruelly.

Mrs. Spurgeon’s visit provokes a smile even now as I remember the urgency and seriousness of what appears now an insignificant event, but which assumed such enormous proportions at that period of time, that the cleric in charge was ready to abscond to his village in fright or else fake a grave overnight with the help of a mason who reputed to be an expert in producing weather beaten textures.

VED MEHTA

(1934 – 2021)

The best events in life have occurred when least expected, Indeed, its within experience that one’s most fervently desired aspirations are usually negated by quirks of Karma? Kismet?

On a hurriedly unplanned trip to the interior I ruefully counted on my fingers the various uses I could put this exorbitant airfare both ways, my mind in a whirl of worried apprehensions.  I remembered a close doctor friend’s remark lightly said that 1 had all the potential of chairing a depression society gathering and win laurels hands down. Maybe I magnified trivialities. The plane lurched a bit and looking out of the small window it was one expanse of white fluff as if a giant machine had churned up egg whites or else the skies had turned into piles of snow-white cotton wool.  Surely these could not be termed clouds which are traditionally dark, oppressive and have a silver lining.

Contemplating the snowy mounds, I settled back and eased my mind on my favourite prop, Emersons’s law of compensation; an ardent believer in its truth for surely. I would visit Lahore, my birth place. Any visit to that city was evocative; however short the span of stay,

for I had arrived in that unknown country of age, when past, present and future are like a troika, except that instead of proceeding harmoniously they pull in different directions, each with its hazards and surprises.

When I did break journey in Lahore I was filled with nostalgia as always and wanted to walk down the Mall, look into Lila-Ram, the eminent draper next to Stiffles, where a cabaret was held on Saturday nights. Across was Victoria Park, the portly Queen enthroned stonily under an exquisitely orient marble canopy. The large turfed ground was encircled with a chain barrier looped all round evenly. There was Lorangs, another restaurant renowned for its teas. From the Queen’s statue a small walk would bring one to the fairyland shop of Whiteaway’s and Laidlaw; next to it Smith & Campbell the chemist.  Further on were the Chinese shoemakers, on and on with Kirpa Ram Bros. in Anarkali, a shopping centre known throughout. Shops like Raja Bros, and Karnal Shoe, Sheikh Enayatullah. The Mall, as stored in my mind’s eye was the Queen of all roads. The High Court, Kim’s Gun and the imposing GPO, (General Post Office), Temple Road, with its stately houses and name plates of lawyers and of course the glorious Lawrence Gardens. A band played on Saturday nights enthralling children and adults alike. The glowworms in summer were as profuse as the flies nowadays and of course there was Queen Mary, termed College and school. The lofty gates were barred and guarded closely. Its boarding house caring for girls of North West India, a prestigious Alma Mater where exams were no priority. It was my first initiation to western schooling, and so this is what Lahore meant.

Without being indigenous to this lovely city I still feel a pulse beating on crossing the Ravi bridge; Noorjehan the Moghal Queen entombed in solitary neglect across the lofty minaret of her adoring King Jahangir.  Perhaps Lahore missed a Taj Mahal or would it be Nur-Mahal? Just because the Emperor Jahangir’s heart stopped beating before that of his Queen.

With my heart very much beating I stopped in Lahore and sure enough Emerson’s law of compensation had been set in motion already. I acquired a set of books such as would normally be viewed by me in a book-shop longingly.  A much awaited book arrived from overseas and then the platinum lining to the fluffy clouds seen earlier from the airplane appeared. I met Ved Mehta.  This compact Hindu name connoted another Asian author writing for English speaking readers in line with Naipaul, S, Rama Rao, R.K. Narayan, Khushwant Singh etc. Some years earlier I had read his ‘Portrait of India’ and was much impressed with the detailed visual imagery and description of peoples and places as well as capturing of the typical Indian atmosphere which defies description.

Then last year I was lent ‘Delinquent Chacha’, a humorous novel, so full of fun and pathos that I re-read it and marvelled at the author’s powers of observation. I had also vaguely heard of a furore caused by a book titled “Mahatma Gandhi and his Apostles”.

Now on this reluctantly taken trip to the interior I had stopped in Lahore. Perchance at the time, Ved Mehta had crossed several time zones and many oceans on his annual visit to see his aged parents in Delhi, and had availed an invitation to visit Lahore extended by his friends, a young couple he had talked and met with earlier in New York and Delhi.  All this sounds ordinary enough but what is startling definitely is that Ved Mehta, a citizen of the United States born in Lahore, strictly indigenous to the great city for many generations, author of over half a dozen books of international repute, is blind, and has been blind from the age of four.

The enormity of this fact befuddled me with wonder and humility for he too had come on a visit to his past. His past consisted of an unhappy childhood which a cruel fate had inflicted on an innocent unsuspecting infant but illumined some inward lens that enabled him to achieve a genius so unique that he has been able to record details of his painful childhood.  “Face to Face’ a biography, is a saga of his personal courage and determination, merits a more detailed recounting then space allows. I will confine my tribute to the few encounters with him.

As the car came to a halt on the driveway both doors flew open; Guest and hosts alighted simultaneously for Ved does not require doors to be opened for him.  He greets you warmly, his face smiling. I was absolutely unprepared for this more than normal atmosphere he brought to an overawed fellow guest. The slightest indication by a pressure of the hands and he is on his way, smiling and confident, saying the right things, never reacting to faux-pax which a keen audience must be constantly be committing with incredible speed. He familiarised himself with the surroundings.  Once shown his way around, he does not falter in direction. I followed him to the room amazed at his ease of manner.

Keenly asked to meet his hosts’ toddlers he remembered to fuss and talk to them so their shyness vanished. He chattered easily in Urdu with a strong western accent as this extraordinary man with a luminous glow on his face has a capacity for small talk devoid of tension while others stare speechless. The temptation to talk of his books and blindness is spontaneous; he is probably used to it by now. I avoided the inclination to do so for his book and blindness are immortalised by his own brilliant perseverance. I can always mull over both but where again in life will I have a chance to listen and observe so extraordinary a human being who has carved out of a childhood calamity, such a lofty seat on the international panorama. So much so that a rumour about Ved Mehta’s pending arrival had caused more than a flutter in high places, for it is no mean achievement for a country to identify a citizen who by sheer dint of courage and initiative, has put his blindness faraway as possible from day to day living.

With his fair North Indian personality, he has retained his boyish good looks and mop of hair and in spite of this unbearable handicap, one cannot help noticing his long lashes, adorning what must have been a pair of beautiful large eyes. He wears an academic cap of varied prestigious plumes: Oxford and Harvard. He is one of the editors of the glossy New Yorker magazine, for Ved has smashed the shackles of human bondage and does not relish being known as a blind person as is evident from the prefaces of his books. The only mention of his literary achievement came when he commented in answer to a query, that his books should be read aloud as this is how they were written.  The only illusion to his lack of eyesight he was quick to add that though blind himself he did not write for blind people.

I was deeply moved with affection and admiration for this rare young man who surely must feel very tired at times for having no armament against his environments except his senses which would constantly be alert.  Normally we are our own protection as three-fourths of our surroundings are registered visually and we relax or react accordingly. With Ved Mehta it would be different, looking defenceless and yet the star of the gathering. Was he aware of how emotionally stirred his young host and his wife was? Did he gauge the depth of brilliance and understanding in his tall, good-looking host or did he feel the ache on his radiant young hostess’s face whose soft gazelle eyes brimmed over several times, so overcome she was at this brave man’s trust in their guidance of taking him to the right places.

They were deeply complimented at the trust Ved Mehta had in the schedule laid out by them; indeed, his hosts had left no stone unturned to make the short visit as complete as possible, raking up schools and residences for him to revisit. Thirty-two years had gone by, Ved had left Lahore as a twelve-year-old. I felt aged for I was in my twenties then. Ved had returned a grown man to a look at his childhood haunts. It’s only right that one refers and talks of Ved in words necessitating vision.

The son of Dr. Amolak Ram Mehta, a high-ranking medical bureaucrat in the waning years of the Raj, Ved has his inner eyes beam strongly and a spool of memories initiates, which he is capable of rewinding ceaselessly.  He would slip out and follow his sisters to the Convent and wait outside, then follow them home by the sound of their voices. He chatted gaily about Murree and Rawalpindi on his return from his brief visit to these places.  It was the most natural thing for me to blunder on asking him about the pine trees in Murree and if the clouds floated down the valley and whether he found the Rawalpindi house intact. Ved’s mirror like mind contains another spool of imagery, vivid and true, cultivated beyond the limits of space and time. He even applauded the migrant tenants of his former residences on their keen descriptions of new sanitary systems installed by them, almost apologizing for his being remiss enough in not putting them there before he fled town at the age of twelve in 1947.

I wondered what Ved Mehta would think if I ranted on about lost horizons of Lahore that I reminisced about.  Shady Davis Road, Charing Cross Masonic Lodge and Falleti’s. Plaza cinema on Queens Road with plush seats, showcasing Marie Antoinette.  Macleod Road cinemas brimming over with Pukar, Vidya Pati, Sikandar-i-Azam. Rawalpindi for me was a period of schooling in the Presentation Convent.  In later years I was a temporary resident as an army wife in the Northern Command of the British Indian Army.  Murree was an arduous ride, a stopover on the way to Kashmir.  My vivid memory of Murree is a turbaned old musician who strummed the banjo with soulful eyes, never asking for money but just playing away.

Yet Ved Mehta has the upper hand; his entire mind and imagery has spilled into books of worldwide fame. No amount of recounting on our parts can vie with his recordings, but I felt by now a personal concern for the most human of human beings and asked him if these world-wide accolades which his friends and family have showered, how much of the suffering was portioned out?  Suffering there has been and my conviction is that the suffering and agony has been his own private, cross unshared and uncommunicated. No amount of recounting on our part can vie with the recordings of his own visual panorama, as is evident from his forceful mind, which has spilled vivid and true imagery into books of worldwide fame, in which the word ‘blind’ as no place; in fact, does not exist.

How proud the family, nation and country to where he belongs. One feels inadequate to mention trivialities in the face of so much achievement in a world where civilised human beings have invented countless eyes, electronic, bionic not to be outdone by the private eye.  This cheerful young man has grasped life with no kind of eyes except perhaps the inward eye, which can conjure up golden daffodils, and is the sort of person of whom one may say, “the mind has a thousand eyes and the heart but one”.

His visit to Lahore ended in a very short while, his two hosts may have felt cheated inwardly at having to share him with chance visitors.  For Ved this was a strictly private visit to his old haunts.

As Shahnaz held his hand he smoothly but swiftly crossed the airport foyer; his VIP status ensured straight passage to the plane. His host carried a briefcase and books, much to Ved’s remonstrance for Ved does not carry a stick for guidance and neither needs guidance with hands. It was only an affectionate clasping of his host’s hands to convey his thanks.

Before he boarded the plane I was overwhelmed to hear him say quietly on the side that I was right; the rewards of worldwide accolades were shared by all who came into contact, but much personal suffering was solely his own to fit in with his existence. He walked the gangway firmly and turned to wave. I was moved beyond words. Sitting in the plane he looked defenceless and must be relieved at last to leave for abodes familiar, but Ved Mehta cannot be appropriated, he belongs to each of us who have met and talked to. This genius being a US citizen or an Indian national does not confine him. Such people are citizens of the world.

I have read many portrait books but none surpasses ‘Portrait of India’. A stranger to Ved’s book would never countenance that this author with a flair for vivid visual writing is afflicted with blindness from the age of four.  Ved very correctly said that although blind himself, he did not write for blind people. As his plane nosed out of the runway, I remembered a trifle sadly, the lines of a poem written for a newly born in fact, the last few lines were what I also wished for him:

We wish the new child a heart that can be beguiled by a flower

That the wind lifts as it passes over the grasses after a summer shower

A heart that can recognize without the aid of eyes

The gifts that life holds for the Wise

When the storm breaks for him May the trees shake their blossoms down.

In the night that he is troubled May a friend work for him

So that his time be doubled and at the end of all loving and love.

                 MAY THE MAN ABOVE give him a crown

–Poem for a child newly born

The storms did break for him at the age of four, and probably he is still combating with them. I wished with all my heart for Ved to live a happy life on whichever distant shores destiny took him to. My air ticket to the interior was more than compensated.  Emerson proved right again, The chance meeting with this charming, talented man was a bonus, and I will feel privileged to the end of  life’s story at meeting a fellow Asian who conquered the world of
intellect and genius, without the proverbial “windows’ to the world’.
I may risk his displeasure at the emphasis on his blindness.

Nayyar Agha

28th September, 1979