Out of India (21 page)

Domingo Paes stood on a hill in Vijayanagar and could not see where the city ended. And who could divine the limits of the king’s wishes? Even the most ordinary of his desires, the thirst for conquest, seemed to stretch the possibilities of human accomplishment. When, in 1520, Krishnadeva marched against Adil Shah of Bijapur, and they met at Raichur on the bank of the Krishna River, the army of Vijayanagar numbered 703,000 infantry, 32,600 cavalry and 551 elephants. Numerous camp followers brought this host to over a million. Should we believe the reliable Nuniz? That was nothing, wrote the equally reliable Paes, at a pinch the king could raise even two million.

This was in the South Indian tradition, an ingrained way of glory. Former dynasties – Chalukyas, Pallavas, Pandyas, Cholas, Hoysalas, even the Muslim Bahmanis – with lesser means had still acted up to the hilt. ‘Accept this purse of gold,’ said an earlier king of Vijayanagar to a Persian ambassador, ‘since we may not eat together, this is the feast I give you.’ Largeness of the soul mattered. It was
demonstrated by great works, great ambition, great display, great success, but also great waste and loss, and great falls. The mere human was expendable (the life of man, in any case, had but a short run), but acts and spirit endured. The courtiers of Bahmani wore jewels on the instep of their slippers, but the chances of their lives lay hidden in the hands of the sultan. The jewels still glint in the annals of time, the names of the courtiers are utterly lost.

Highlands School taught us well. I learnt much about England, though I lived thousands of miles away. I read Harrison Ainsworth and Rafael Sabatini, and knew something about Danelaw, and began my acquaintance with Euclid and my long battle with algebra (how strange that we were never told of India’s gift of the zero to the world of numbers). I kicked footballs here and there, and whacked a cricket ball cross-batted into the bushes of the hillside. I stood and held out my hand stoically when I had broken the rules, then jammed my stinging palms into my armpits, trying not to blubber. But something appeared to be missing from this education. In odd moments, when faced with the thundering verities on the blackboard, I thought wistfully of the wild tales of Vijayanagar, so preposterous and heart-lifting, that stumbled mouth to mouth in the untrustworthy whispers of the dormitory.

Listening to them I, a boy of the Raj, grew into something more than an English boy. I became a participator, however remote, in a stranger, larger humanity.

L
ORD RAMA, IT was well known, had visited this site on the bank of the Musi, in the days when the river ran free and many gods roamed the land. Some miles to the north and east, in the scrabble of calcareous rock and lowering boulders, was the hill of Kadam Rasul which, legend had it, bore an imprint of the Prophet's foot. Midway between these holy places was the camp of the interlopers, the 20 square miles of the Secunderabad cantonments where, since before the days of the Mutiny, the soldiers and the allies of the Raj kept watch. They were always in readiness, and among the stratagems they used was the trick of the old game: divide and rule. In those days they could discern the face of the enemy, ever-changing though he was. But now, it hardly mattered who was friend and who was foe. Well-wishers and implacable opponents alike were agreed on one thing, and the message was clearly understood. It was time for the British to let go. There was no longer any room for the Raj between Lord Rama and the Prophet Mohammed.

*

In the cantonment village of Bolarum, on the outskirts of Secunderabad, my father had been assigned a house in which Winston Churchill had once lived. That was in Churchill's swashbuckling military days, in the early years of the twentieth century, when the Raj was set for the long haul, and young Churchill carried forward the interests of
empire on his own jaunty shoulders. I saw a photo of him from this time – the cavalry officer's glad-rags, the insouciant chubby face beneath a regimental topee canted at a provocative angle. The face wore that expression later to be so well-known, the look of cheerful belligerence that was almost a smirk. He was surveying the imperial territory around him and approved it as right and well-founded and set to endure.

His house in Bolarum – now our house – also looked built to survive. It was a large granite bungalow, designed in what seemed to be a modification of Scottish baronial style. Two short wings flanked a massive central portion rising like a bold forehead over a long curved verandah. The roofline of rough-cut stones had a look of crenellations and defences. It was a cool, commodious house, rooms with shuttered windows and high ceilings shady against the sunlight, set well away from other houses in about half an acre of grounds. In the front were flowerbeds and a driveway of swept earth; in the back rank grass and low scrub under a few droopy trees cut off the bungalow from the servants' quarters in the far corner – a row of small hutches in cracked and weather-stained plaster, like discarded boxes for old shoes. Beyond the granite gateposts of the front entrance, holding their discipline against the wild embrace of the bougainvillaea, across a quiet unpaved road, the open space of the maidan began. This gave way to a golf course, not much used but always carefully tended, with the sandy ‘browns' (the turf was too coarse and sparse for proper ‘greens') as closely combed as regimental haircuts.

Then, beyond this, at some undefined point, demarcation became blurred. The shape of the present, with its insistent political and economic plans, faded into the ancient elements of the countryside. Sight strained against a vast expanded sky that gave the eye no place to rest, no surety of an end.

When the cooler months came to the Deccan we travelled from the Nilgiris to rejoin our father in Secunderabad. The family was united, but in what sense, and for what end?

The trappings and authority of his command imposed a routine upon my father. Military orderliness kept uncertainty at bay. In the morning his staff-car arrived at seven, before the heat of the day. His tall thin frame, doubled over the bloomer-like khaki tropical shorts, eased into the back seat, and then my father left without fuss or comment, as he had been doing all the years of my young life. He returned at lunch but soon retired for a siesta, lying in pyjamas under the old wheezing fan (my father was an excellent sleeper, with a smoker's tendency to snore). In late afternoon he went back to his office to round off the working day. The burden was not very heavy. When he bathed before dinner, often I would hear his croaky baritone bouncing out of the tin tub.

Dinner was the important family moment in the day, almost formal, for which we boys were expected to be on good behaviour, washed and combed and with our buttons done up. The table was laid on white linen, our napkins rolled in silver rings. Beside each place was a Japanese lacquered finger-bowl, deep glossy black with a gold interior. Sami, the bearer, had changed from his working day-clothes into full formal dress – long white tunic with a broad cummerbund in the regimental colours,
pugree
and stiff white turban again showing the regimental colours. The house-boy – the
chokra
– carried the trays of food a dozen paces from the little outside kitchen (no more than a hut on blocks with a cooker fashioned from two cubes that had been kerosene cans) to the small back verandah. This was Sami's domain, where my father's boots and shoes lay in a row and his Sam Browne belt hung on the wall, all buffed to a mirror-like finish. In the corner, below the full shelf of glasses, the
bulky GEC refrigerator kicked suddenly into a spasm of throbs.

When Sami served the food, a solicitous ghost at the table (I had grown used to servants), I recall now the competence and quiet dignity of the man. He had worked hard in the service of the Raj. To be bearer in the family of a senior officer was his reward. He had no conception of inferiority, nor of disloyalty to India. Did he think of himself as ‘Indian'? He told me once that he was from the Western Ghats, on the edge of the Deccan. Most likely a Maratha. But I see now just a man proud of his place, his skill, his experience. Deftly he judged the demands of the dinner, that the main dish should not get cold while the soup was being drunk but should be kept warm on the charcoal hot-plate on the back verandah. When he served, a plate with a crest was placed just so, with the crest four-square under the eye. When he moved he was there, and then he was gone, bare feet with slippers kicked off by the back door making no sound on the matting of the floor. If there was laughter at table at some childish crack – I was something of a little comedian in those carefree days – I saw Sami turn quickly away to hide a grin. He would never be impertinent, but he was human, and he spoke excellent English.

The dinner, of course, was firmly British. Nothing to set the gastric juices running. Soup, thick or thin, but generally brownish in colour; chicken, or an egg dish, or a piece of tough meat; vegetables with potatoes (no rice); fruit, or a custard pudding. Only in the matter of vegetables and fruit were the infinite resources of India brought into play, lady's fingers or aubergine or sweet potato or
dal
sneaking in cautiously in the place of sprouts or cabbage. After dinner, my mother liked an English chocolate, its surface under the wrapping turning ashy grey in the tropical heat.

After some months in Bolarum, when Sami's son Rahul
had taken us in hand and shown us something of Indian ways, my brother and I supplemented this stodgy fare with spicy Indian messes eaten with fingers and folded chapati in the lee of the cookhouse or squatting on the beaten earth in front of the servants' quarters. I noticed then that the leftovers from our family table, however plentiful, were thrown to the dogs and chickens.

*

The ladies had come to the house. Some of them I knew by sight – Bunty and Audrey and Halcyon and Begum. It was the mah-jong morning and my mother's turn to entertain. The ‘girls' (for so they often called themselves) were in good humour, lighthearted and casually dressed in slacks or sporting clothes. One wore a loose, colourful turban, fashionable in Hollywood films, another wore jodhpurs and boots ready for an afternoon's riding. Only Begum – lovely, dark-eyed, slinky Begum, young wife of an Indian officer – was carefully dressed in a sari with her face made up to show off her striking features.

My mother was excited. This was her moment. She had discussed the shape of the morning with Sami, giving her orders, her voice rising at the anxious points. Was the silver coffee-pot polished? And the sugar-bowl? The best china cups, naturally. Biscuits, of course – a good selection from the big round tin. Cigarettes? Make sure both the silver and the sandalwood box were well-filled. And have sherry and glasses ready in case the session went on to lunch. Wear the cummerbund, the regimental colours look so nice. And no need to keep popping in, we'll tinkle the bell if we want you.

Though I knew nothing about mah-jong I liked to watch it very much. So long as I was quiet I could stay in the background nibbling a biscuit and pretending to read. But the game had my attention. The pattern of play looked rich but obscure, and the pieces were so handsome. My mother had a fine old set in ivory, with bold Chinese
characters. When the game began the contest looked complicated to me, both cunning and free-spirited according to the pressures. Sometimes a lady would lounge back in her chair, almost dreaming, cigarette smoke drifting into narrowed eyes. Then one would pounce, springing forward intent upon some artful strategy. Mostly, I kept my eye on the pretty Indian lady. ‘O gosh,' she would say with a radiant smile when things were going well, and in sticky moments, ‘My dear,
so
aggravating.' From time to time she smoked, puffing nervously, as if caught in a naughty act. I noticed she would say ‘Blighty' for England.

Bets were made in tiny amounts – annas not rupees – just to keep the play slightly daring.

In the pauses for coffee social events were co-ordinated and intently anatomized.

‘On Saturday there's the cocktail party at the General's house. I take it that we're all going?'

‘They say some Indian big-wig is expected – such a bore really – and of course one hardly knows what to wear on those occasions. A pretty dress might look too frivolous – we're all on our best behaviour now! – but formality is so dull.'

‘It's all right for you, Begum, you always look so elegant in your sari. And your skin looks so
well
out of doors. Poor us, we need all the creams we can get.'

‘To change the subject –
that
dinner in Trimulgherry! Such fun.'

‘When were we last there? More than two months ago? My, how time flies.'

‘But that girl, so indiscreet, and more than a little squiffy. Who was she?'

‘Some box-wallah family, I gather.'

‘How shaming.'

‘Jim was just terrible, of course, but that's Jim.'

With the past wrung out for the moment, the future was planned. A busy round of visits ahead. An extended dinner
party in instalments, a different course eaten in each household, and a mad dash to the next. ‘No, be serious for a minute. Who's going to organize that? And someone had better stay sober to drive.' Then there was the fancy-dress party at the Club. ‘What are we all going as? Such a shame if we all go as clowns, or witches!' (My father always went as a tramp, with stubble of burnt cork, and, a Charlie Chaplin walking-stick.) It was settled. Halcyon would coordinate the dinner, and Bunty find out about the fancy dress.

Suddenly it was time to go. The lady in the jodhpurs jumped up, looking at her watch. She was already late.

‘Must hurry. There's this darling man waiting to give me a lesson.'

‘Bye-bye,' they cried, ‘toodle-oo.'

‘Don't forget the Club on Sunday,' shouted my mother, waving hopefully.

After they were gone my mother was distracted. She looked a little lost. She frowned around the sitting-room, stubbing out a cigarette impatiently, almost willing some insult to her sense of good order. But Sami and the chokra, efficient as usual, had everything neat and cleared away. Lunch was already planned. Perhaps a little nap afterwards. But my mother was often too nervous, too high-strung, to sleep during the day. She didn't ride, or play tennis. She would not take a walk on the maidan – what was the point of such a tedious pastime? One wasn't
going
anywhere – and too much sun was not good for her delicate skin. She was allergic to something – pollen or dust – that brought out her urticaria.