A question arises in one's mind about the extent to which the club has changed since Daphne Manners's day. The servants still wear white turbans beribboned to match the wide sashes that nip in the waists of their knee-length white coats. White trousers flap baggily above their bare brown feet, and stir old memories of padding docile service. Perhaps in the decor of this particular lounge-bar, change of an ephemeral nature may be seen: the formica-topped counter instead of the old wood that needed polishing, glazed chintz curtains decorated with spiral abstractions instead of cabbage roses, and chairs whose severe Scandinavian welcome brings the old cushioned-wicker comfort gratefully back to the mind.
But it would be foolish to suppose that such contemporaneity is a manifestation of anything especially significant, or to jump to the conclusion that the obvious preference shown for this room by the handful of English members present proves, in itself, their subconscious determination to identify themselves only with what is progressive and therefore superior. This lounge-bar, giving on to a verandah from which the tennis can be watched, was always the favorite of the Mayapore ladies, and for the moment at any rate the only ladies in the club, apart from Lady Chatterjee, are English. If Indian ladies on the whole are still happier at home, who but they are to blame for the look the room has of being reserved for Europeans?
But then, why are there no Indian men in the room either? And why are some of the Englishmen not sitting with their own women in the lounge-bar but standing in the other room where drinks are served, talking to Indian men? And why do they manage to convey (even at a distance, in the glimpse you have of them between square pillars across the passage and through wide open doors to the old smoking-room) a sense of almost oldmaidish decorum, of physical fastidiousness unnatural to men when in the company of their own sex? Why, whenever one of them breaks away, crosses the passage and enters the lounge-bar to rejoin his lady, is there presently a rather too noisy laugh from him and a shrug and secret little smile from her? Why does he now exude the aggressive, conscious masculinity that seemed to be held in abeyance in the smoking-room?
The arrival in the lounge-bar of a grey-haired, pale-brown man of some sixty-odd years puts only a temporary stop to such private speculations. Mr. Srinivasan is of medium height, thin, punctilious in manner. His skin has a high polish. He is immaculately turned out. The lightweight suit, the collar and tie, point another interesting difference. The inheritors come properly dressed but the Englishmen expose thick bare necks and beefy arms. Mr. Srinivasan makes a formal old-fashioned apology for being late, for having failed to arrive first and greet his guests. He also makes a joke (once current among the English) about Mayapore time which it seems is still generally reckoned to be half-an-hour in arrear of Indian Standard. One gets up to shake his hand, and meets the mild but penetrating gaze that reveals a readiness to withstand the subtlest insult that an experiencesharpened sensibility is capable of detecting. Lady Chatterjee who addresses him as Vassi, says, “You know Terry Grigson's wife, of course?” and Srinivasan bows in the direction of the Englishwoman who, still protectively immersed in the shallow enchantment of the Sunday Times Magazine achieves a token emergence by a slight lift of the head (which would be a look at Mr. Srinivasan if the eyelids did not simultaneously lower) and by a movement of the lips (that might be “Good Evening” if they actually opened more than a gummy fraction). Her companion, also introduced, nods, and being younger and less inhibited perhaps by ancient distinctions looks as if she might be drawn into the general conversation, but Mrs. Grigson, with a perfect sense of timing, turns the Sunday Times Magazine toward her and points out some extraordinary detail of Coventry Cathedral so that they are then both lost in the illustrated complexities of modern Anglo-Saxon art; and the uncharitable thought occurs that, for the English, art has anyway always had its timely, occupational value.
And it could occur to you, too, that Mr. Srinivasan is not at ease in the lounge-bar, that if he had only managed to conduct his affairs in accordance with Indian Standard instead of Mayapore time he would have been waiting at the entrance when his second best car, the Ambassador, drove up and deposited its passengers, and would then have taken them into the old smoking-room, not had to leave them to the jovial Terry Grigson whose wife finds nothing to laugh about but with whom Mr. Srinivasan and his guests are momentarily stuck, for politeness' sake, at least until Terry comes back from the showers and changing room—
—as he does, beaming and raw-faced, in a creased bush shirt and floppy creased grey trousers, but not before Mr. Srinivasan with a thin, almost tubercular finger, has summoned a bearer and asked everybody what they are drinking and sent the bearer off to collect it, having been answered even by Mrs. Grigson, and by her companion who taking her cue from Mrs. Grigson also said, “Nothing for me, thank you.” Terry comes back between the sending away of the bearer with the curtailed order and his return with a tray of three lonely gins and tonics, by which time Terry has also been asked by Mr. Srinivasan what he will drink, thanked him, and said, “I'll go a beer.” When the gins and tonics arrive and Srinivasan says to the bearer, “And a beer for Mr. Grigson,” Mrs. Grigson pushes her empty glass at Terry and says, “Order me another of these, Terry, will you?” which he does, with a brief, almost private gesture at the bearer. The other woman, lacking Mrs. Grigson's nerve for studied insult, would go drinkless did Terry not say, while Srinivasan talks to Lili Chatterjee, “What about you, Betty?” which enables her to shrug, grimace, and say, “Well, I suppose I might as well.” Since no money passes and no bills are yet presented for signing, one wonders who in fact will pay for them, but trusts—because Grigson looks almost self-consciously trustworthy—that he will see to it afterwards that Mr. Srinivasan's bar account is not debited with a charge it seems his wife and her friend would rather die than have an Indian settle.
And now, perhaps abiding by yet another unwritten rule, perhaps having even received some secret, clan-gathering sign, a dumpy Englishwoman at an adjacent table leans across and asks Mrs. Grigson a question which causes Mrs. Grigson to incline her angular body by a degree or two and with this inclination fractionally shift the position of her chair, so that by a narrow but perceptible margin she succeeds in dissociating herself from those with whom she actually shares a table. It is difficult to hear what it is that so arouses her interest, because Lili Chatterjee, Mr. Srinivasan and (to his lone, team-captain's credit) Mr. Grigson are also talking with animation, and the stranger can only observe and make possibly erroneous deductions: possibly erroneous but not probably. There is nothing so inwardly clear as social rebuff—a rebuff which in this case is also directed at the stranger because he has arrived with one Indian as the guest of another.
And in the momentary hiatus of not knowing exactly what it is that anyone is talking about, one may observe Terry Grigson's off-handsome face and see that old familiar expression of strain, of deep-seated reservation that qualifies the smile and points up the diplomatic purpose; a purpose which, given a bit more time, may not prevail against the persistence of his sulky segregationist wife. And this, perhaps, is a pity, considering all the chat that goes on at home about the importance of trade and exports and of making a good impression abroad.
“Well no,” Terry Grigson says, in answer to Mr. Srinivasan's for-form's-sake inquiry whether he and his wife will join the trio of Srinivasan, Lili Chatterjee and her houseguest for dinner at the club, “It's very kind of you, but we're going on to Roger's farewell and have to get back and change.”
The Roger referred to is, one gathers, the retiring managing director of British-Indian Electrical. Almost every month one more member of this transient European population ups stakes, retires, returns to England or moves on to another station. For each farewell, however, there is a housewarming, or a party to mark the occasion of a wife's arrival to join her husband in the place where for the next year or two he will earn his living. Whatever that living actually is—with the British-Indian Electrical, with one of the other indus
trial developments, or teaching something abstruse at the Mayapore Technical College, it will be earned by someone considered superiorly equipped to manage, guide, execute or instruct. He will be a member of that new race of Sahibs. He will be, in whatsoever field, an Expert.
“There is actually a most interesting but undoubtedly apocryphal story about the status of English experts in India nowadays,” Mr. Srinivasan says in his rather high-pitched but melodious lawyer's voice when the party in the lounge-bar has been broken up by the quick-downing by Terry Grigson of his beer and by the ladies of their gin-fizzes, and their departure to change into clothes that will be more suitable for the purpose of bidding Roger Godspeed. Upon that departure Mr. Srinivasan has led Lady Chatterjee and the stranger across the lounge, through the pillared passage and the open doors into the comfortable old smoking-room that has club chairs, potted palms, fly-blown hunting prints and—in spite of the spicy curry-smells wafted in from the adjacent dining-room by the action of the leisurely turning ceiling fans—an air somehow evocative of warmed-up gravy and cold mutton. In here, only one Englishman now remains. He glances at Mr. Srinivasan's party—but retains the pale mask of his anonymity, a mask that he seems to wear as a defense against the young, presumably inexpert Indians who form the group of which he is the restrained, withheld, interrogated, talked-at center. It is because one asks Mr. Srinivasan who this white man is, and because Mr. Srinivasan says he does not know but supposes he is a “visiting expert” that the interesting but perhaps apocryphal story is told.
“There was,” Mr. Srinivasan says, “this Englishman who was due to go home. An ordinary tourist actually. He fell into conversation with a Hindu businessman who for months had been trying to get a loan from Government in order to expand his factory. A friend had told the businessman, ‘But it is impossible for you to get a loan from Government because you are not employing any English technical adviser.’ So the businessman asked himself: ‘Where can I get such an adviser and how much will it cost me seeing that he would expect two or three years’ guarantee contract at minimum?' Then he met this English tourist who had no rupees left. And the Hindu gentleman said, ‘Sir, I think you are interested in earning rupees five thousand?’ The English tourist agreed straight away. ‘Then all you will do, sir,’ the Hindu gentleman said, ‘is to postpone departure for two weeks while I write to certain people in New Delhi.’ Then he telegraphed Government saying, ‘What about a loan? Here already I am at the expense of employing technical expert from England and there is no answer coming from you.’ To which at once he received a telegraph reply to the effect that his factory would be inspected by representatives of Government on such and such a day. So he went back to the English tourist and gave him five thousand rupees and said, ‘Please be at my factory on Monday, are you by any chance knowing anything about radio components?’ To which the English tourist replied, ‘No, unfortunately, only I am knowing about ancient monuments.’ ‘No matter,’ the Hindu gentleman said, ‘on Monday whenever I jog your elbow simply be saying—“This is how it is done in Birmingham.” ’ So on Monday there was this most impressive meeting in the executive suite of the factory between the Hindu businessman who knew all about radio component manufacture, the English tourist who knew nothing and the representatives of Government who also knew nothing. Before lunch they went round the premises and sometimes one of the officials of Government asked the Englishman, ‘What is happening here?’ and the Hindu gentleman jogged the En-glishman's elbow, and the Englishman who was a man of honor, a man to be depended upon to keep his word said, ‘This is how we do it in Birmingham.’ And after a convivial lunch the Government representatives flew back to Delhi and the English tourist booked his flight home first class by BOAC and within a week the Hindu businessman was in receipt of a substantial Government loan with a message of goodwill from Prime Minister Nehru himself.”
And one notes, marginally, that the new wave of satire has also broken on the Indian shore and sent minor flood-streams into the interior, as far as Mayapore.
PAUL THEROUX
(1941–)
Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts. He joined the Peace Corps in Africa where he wrote his first novel Girls at Play (1969). He later moved to Singapore before making his home in London in 1971. He now lives in Hawaii, as prolific as ever. It has been his mixed fate to be better known as a travel writer despite having published such distinguished novels as Saint Jack (1973) and My Secret History (1989). This reputation began with The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), which described Theroux's fourmonth journey on rail through Asia. In this entertaining book, Theroux almost single-handedly reinvented the modern genre of travel writing: a writing that veers between brisk description and crankish irreverence— ”Afghanistan,” goes one not atypical sentence, “is a nuisance”—and establishes the author's iconoclasm in the reader's mind more securely than the passing scenery. In this excerpt he watches gypsies from a slow empty train, interrogates an American Buddhist monk, and judges the “sacredness of water” in a temple pond by “its degree of stagnation.”
from THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR
THE LOCAL TO RAMESWARAM
I had two ambitions in India: one was to find a train to Ceylon, the other was to have a sleeping car to myself. At Egmore Station in Madras both ambitions were fulfilled. My little cardboard ticket read Madras—Colombo Fort, and when the train pulled out the conductor told me I would be the only passenger in the car for the twenty-two-hour journey to Rameswaram. If I wished, he said, I could move to the second compartment—the fans worked there. It was a local train, and, since no one was going very far, everyone chose third class. Very few people went to Rameswaram, he said, and these days nobody wanted to go to Ceylon: it was a troublesome country, there was no food in the markets, and the prime minister, Mrs. Bandaranaike, didn't like Indians. He wondered why I was going there.
“For the ride,” I said.
“It is the slowest train.” He showed me the timetable. I borrowed it and took it into my compartment to study. I had been on slow trains before, but this was perverse. It seemed to stop every five or ten minutes. I held the timetable to the window to verify it in the light.
Madras Egmore 11.00
Mambalam 11.11
Tambaran 11.33
Perungalattur Halt 11.41
Vandalur 11.47
Guduvanchari 11.57
Kattargulattur 12.06
Singaperumalkoil 12.15
Chingleput 12.35
And so forth. I counted. It stopped ninety-four times in all. I had got my wish, but I wondered whether it was worth the penalties.
The train gathered speed; the brakes squeaked; it lurched and stopped. It started again, and no sooner had it begun to roll easily than the brakes gave this metal wail. I dozed in my compartment, and each time the train stopped I heard laughter and the stamping of feet past my door, a muted galloping up and down the passage, doors banging and the ring of metal on metal. The voices ceased when the train was underway and did not start again until the next station, a commotion at the doors, shrieks, and clangs. I looked out the window and saw the strangest sight—children, girls and boys of anywhere from seven to twelve, the younger ones naked, the older ones wearing loincloths, were leaping off the train carrying cans of water. They were wild children, with long lank hair faded brown by the sun, with black shoulders and dusty faces and snub noses—like Australian aborigines—and at every station that morning they dashed into the sleeping car and got water from the sink in the toilet compartment. They raced with their cans to camps by the side of the track where thin older people waited, aged men with yellowing curly hair, women kneeling over cooking pots in front of crude lean-tos. They weren't Tamils. I assumed they were aborigines, like the Gonds. They had few belongings and they lived in this dry zone the monsoon had not yet reached. All morning they raided the sleeping car for water, skipping in and out, shouting and laughing, making their scavenging into a noisy game. I locked the inner door, preventing t
hem from dancing down the corridor, but allowing them access to the water.
I had made no arrangements to eat and had no food with me. In the early afternoon I walked the length of the train but could not find a dining car. I was having a snooze at about two o'clock when there was a rap at the window. It was the conductor. Without a word he passed a tray of food through the bars. I ate Tamil-fashion, squelching the rice into a ball with my right hand, mopping the ball into the soupy vegetables, and stuffing the whole business into my mouth. At the next station the conductor reappeared. He took the empty tray and gave me a drowsy salute.
We were traveling parallel to the coast, a few miles inland, and the fans in the compartment gave very little relief from the pressure of humidity. The sky was overcast with clouds that seemed to add weight to the suffocating heat, and the train was going so slowly there was no breeze at the windows. To shake off my feeling of sluggishness, I borrowed a broom and some rags from the conductor; I swept out my compartment and washed all the windows and woodwork. Then I did my laundry and hung it on hooks in the corridor. I plugged the sink and sluiced myself with water, then shaved and put on my slippers and pyjamas. It was my own sleeping car, after all. At Villupuram the electric engine was replaced by a steam locomotive, and at that same station I bought three large bottles of warm beer. I plumped the pillows in my compartment and, while my laundry dried, drank beer and watched the state of Tamil Nadu grow simpler: each station was smaller than the last and the people grew increasingly naked—after Chingleput there were no shirts, undershirts disappeared at Villupuram, and further on lungis were scarce and people were running around in drooping loincloths. The land was flat, featureless except for an occasional storklike Tamil poised in a distant paddy field. The huts were as poorly made as those temporary ones thrown up in the African interior, where it is considered unlucky to live in the same hut two years in a row. They were of mud and had palm-leaf roofs; the mud had cracked in the heat and the first of the monsoon would sweep those roofs away. In contrast to this haphazard building, the rice fields were cleverly irrigated by complex pumping systems and long canals.
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