by Cecil Beaton
I visited Hindu forts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, early Mohammedan cities, relics of the old cities of Delhi, and admired the fort of Tughlakabad.
From the parapet of the Tomb of Humayan, in the precious moments of twilight, one sees India at her best. Beyond the domes of mosques lies the lilac-coloured jungle. A crescent moon appears, in silvery contrast to the few wisps of golden cloud that are hurrying to be away before the sky becomes completely dark: cranes and other large birds are flying home and their wings make a breathless flapping noise; while parrots, very small, but tightly clustered, give the impression, as they pass, of a flying carpet. Jackals come out and slink off again, horrible hang-tail scavengers. A shepherd, rather sadly, is playing on his flute; and from the distance comes the echoing call to evening prayer.
This afternoon, all the way from old Delhi to the Safdar Jung Tomb beyond the new capital, the highways are filled with a great concourse of Mohammedans, taking part in the yearly festival of the Mohorrun. The crowds on foot, or brimming over the sides of bullock carts, are in their best clothes. In the West, people seem to choose colours for no particular reason. Here each colour appears to indicate an uncompromising personal preference. One woman is a walking rainbow, in a small crinoline of apricot yellow that fades to pink and mauve. A ragamuffin has staked all on a surprising dark-red coat of the finest quality velvet. A delicate-looking little boy wears, very correct and straight across his brow, a gold embroidered cap of deep grape colour. Down the streets, enormous edifices of coloured paper and tinsel are carried on poles: each flimsy temple represents a very definite taste; one, of orange and silver, seems to be conscious of its loveliness; another, of white and pale pastel green, is timid and tentative. Each, as it sways or jogs along under the dark trees, has also its own variety of rhythmic movement.
On a piece of high ground, parched and pale yellow, with gnarled trees and rocks, the procession halts. The paper edifices are savagely pulled to bits, soused with water, then buried in a muddy grave of wet sand on which are placed bouquets of magenta and white paper roses.
I am constantly amazed by the beauty of the people. Women’s faces peep from tinselled draperies and remind me of doves; their bodies as compact and firm as bronze statuettes. Some of the men seemed almost alarmingly arrogant while others, oblivious of their haunted, haunting beauty, cannot understand why a European should wish to stare at their eyes, admire their lank hair — like the foliage of water plants — or the extraordinarily aristocratic distinction of their limbs and features. The squatting positions they assume, knees drawn up to the chin, as they rest or meditate, remind me of the bird world.
All the aids to escapism are available in Delhi. Little chance of a flying bomb; European food is plentiful; no shortage of manpower, servants galore, countless boys to preserve the tennis court and pick up the balls for the players, masses of old men to water the garden. There is little noise and the lack of traffic, except for the tinkles of bicycles at luncheon time, gives an air of leisure and prosperity.
Servants of different categories in scarlet, white and gold liveries stand like poppies behind chairs and tables, or appear in the distance of vast halls and marble enfilades looking as small as figures in a landscape.
Viceroy’s house possesses its own doctor, dispensary, barber and tailor. One hundred and fifty gardeners maintain the borders and the preserves. Altogether 300 servants are employed within these regal confines, but when considering this number you must realize that, due to the caste system, at least six servants are needed to do the work undertaken in England today by one hard-working and aged peeress. Any Englishman, living however quietly and simply in India, will have at least six servants: a cook, a butler, a laundryman, a sweeper, a groom, a gardener, and perhaps one other. Even so, he will be poorly attended, his bungalow dirty, food badly cooked; each servant, willing to do only one specific job, is inadequately trained and incompetent. If an Englishman is to work hard in this devitalizing climate he must preserve his energy and leave his servants to do some of the physical work he would readily undertake in England.
The pretentious buildings of the Viceroy’s house and the Secretariat are of no known style. Made of tongue-coloured stone, which retains the dry heat of the day and throws it out angrily at dusk, they appear, at the far end of a processional drive, like a city built for an exhibition. They were designed for peacetime activities: few modern cities could be less practical or convenient for a war headquarters than the present capital. However, in an attempt to alleviate the overcrowding of Delhi, Lord Wavell has partitioned off the house to accommodate several large, separate households. One of the four wings now comprises the office of the Private Secretary to the Viceroy and his staff: another wing is occupied by the Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Fleet, with sixty naval officers; in another wing are army officers. The Comptroller’s house is taken over by officers of GHQ, while the Military Secretary’s house is coverted into a leave camp, as is most of the Viceroy’s house at Simla. The Viceroy and his family insist on leading as simple a life as is possible in these awe-inspiring surroundings.
The general effect of new Delhi is of a complacent yet callous centre, without gaiety or the strength of cruelty; a heartless, bloodless display-city, without a past or the necessary roots to develop a future.
THE BUNGALOW LUNCH
In her shrill, baby voice, Jean McFarlane, my pretty, freckled and carrot-topped secretary at the Secretariat, said, ‘You must come out to see us. Mummie longs to meet you. Lunch or dinner any day is OK.’ I had been somewhat taken aback, for petite Miss Jean had given me no indication that my working with her had in any way impinged on her consciousness. She is, to me, an enigma: a Scottish seventeen-year-old brought up in India where her father has lived since 1913. She seems to take for granted the sudden excitement of war in her midst. Nothing ruffles her. She works because she has to — without complaint or interest.
However, my acceptance of her invitation had sounded so breathlessly enthusiastic that I am sure that, each day I postponed the sortie, she felt more and more sorry for me. Yet a whole week went by while I complained to her that, unfortunately, I had to go elsewhere for some awful VIP treatment of one sort or another. However, I knew, sooner or later, I must accept her invitation; besides, it would be interesting to see the way the Anglo-Indians live. Although I was suffering from an appalling case of ‘Delhi tummy’, I crawled into a very small motor-car, together with guileless Miss McFarlane, her good-looking, stolid father, a squadron leader, and a curly-headed boy friend of Jean’s. In the heat of midday we motored, and in a haze of stomach pains I watched avenues of pepper trees, scarlet-flowering trees, and huge banyans, under which lay sleeping farmers and donkeys.
The small, freshly-painted bungalow villa which the Scot had built for his wife and two daughters was cool and unbelievably clean. The furnishing gave no indication of the occupants’ taste. The mahogany was spindly: there were many calendars of herbaceous borders or mountain cattle: the net curtains were embroidered with iris; cape gooseberries, in an art pot, stood in a modernistic-tiled chimney piece, and on a Victorian sofa lay an orange and black futuristic cushion.
Out of the kitchen wreathed in smiles, came twittering Mrs McFarlane. Her ordinary, everyday voice had acquired a singsong tone, but when she wished to be particularly polite any sentence became an aria. She warbled to her husband, ‘Now, will you show Mr Beaton where to wash his hands?’ And (‘Please excuse this domestic talk, Mr Beaton,’ she said in recitative), ‘Jock dear, please don’t use first the fresh towel put out for the visitor.’ My entrails were rumbling and bubbling to such an extent that no doubt Mrs McFarlane had intuited my condition. Even so I wondered if even now it was not too late to rush to the loo. Oh, the relief, to be by oneself behind a locked door! When I emerged, Mrs McFarlane set upon me with concentrated enthusiasm. ‘A thimbleful of sherry — no? A dash of gin and orange Kiaora? Didn’t I even smoke a Wills’ cigarette? Wouldn’t I prefer a more comfortable chair
?’ While the mother was indulging in a sort of ‘Jewel Song’ of banalities, her pretty daughter was reduced to silence, boy friend ignored, and father merely became redundant. A native servant, wearing a badly-tied turban appeared limply in a frosted glass door. Lunch was served. In the centre of the dining table, on a piece of mirror, a few china animals were placed together with bits of cactus and rock plants. Mrs McFarlane’s whispered instructions to the servant were so contradictory and confusing that the poor man appeared haunted; sweat poured from his turban down his neck and came out in blotches through his cotton clothing. ‘Put it here — no, let it alone — where are the plates?’ Then suddenly Mrs McFarlane hit a high C as she discovered the servant had forgotten to give us big knives for the meat! Followed a long explanation of how she had come in to see the man laying the table and she noticed he had not laid out the big knives. Where were they? They had been taken to the kitchen for an extra polish, and lo and behold, even now he had forgotten to bring them back. ‘Oh dear! The local servants are a fatuous lot! They still drug hopelessly, or leave you, without a “by your leave”, after they have been trained for two years.’
I started to interrogate Jock about HQ but Mrs McFarlane interrupted operatically, ‘What are you doing, Jock dear?’ Crossly, Jock replied, ‘I’m filling my fountain pen.’ ‘What are you doing now, Jock darling? Don’t do the toast twice, dear!’ Crossly the husband snapped back, ‘I’m not doing it twice, I’m doing it for the first time!’ Sarcastic-like, Mrs McFarlane sang in return, ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, dear!’ The recitative of pecking and bickering throughout lunch was interspersed with codas of ‘Would you like some salt?’ ‘A little more butter?’ ‘You, Mr Beaton, you’re an artist, and you should know — what do you think of our hollyhocks?’
Jean and her boy friend ate in silence until Jean was sent to show me her framed photograph. ‘Mr Beaton is an artist; he’ll appreciate your camera portrait — it’s got such a good bit of lighting on the face.’ Jean came back. ‘I can’t find it, Mummie.’ ‘I know where it is — it’s in that drawer full of what I call your rubbish papers.’ While the mother was foraging, the daughter aired her tremendous sensibilities of sensuous delight. ‘I hate chicken skin!’ she said, ‘but I love smoking a cigarette when I’m wet after bathing, but it must be a cork tip or I won’t have it!’ Mrs McFarlane returned. ‘Now, you’re an artist, and I know...’
Determined to exclude India from her life, Mrs McFarlane gave us a typically English lunch, complete with roast potatoes, vegetable marrow under a heavy coating of stickphast, and beetroot in strong vinegar. The ‘never say die’ quality of these Britishers prevents them from even giving in to ‘Delhi tummy’. ‘We never have it here, that’s all! My husband is a bit more delicate, but I always say that it is thanks to the way I run my kitchen that we are never ill. Not that we take any special precautions either: it is just a question of keeping the place clean. We don’t wash the salads in anything special, and we eat everything — lettuce and strawberries. The servants work in the mornings, and then go off for their meals, as, of course, they never touch our food and they never eat here; they’d be making such a mess and a noise if they started cooking all the weird sorts of stuff they like, that my home would become a shambles.’
‘May I have another cup of coffee?’ asked Jock. ‘Yes, of course.’ ‘And may I have it, this time, with sugar in?’ Mrs McFarlane, with a wry smile, examined the bottom of the cup. ‘No, you won’t find a trace of it there — it’s no use looking.’ ‘Then why did you wait until you’d finished the cup? You wanted to be a martyr, I suppose.’
After lunch I was given Mr McFarlane’s bedroom, a hermetically-sealed, cold room, in which to take my siesta. The mattress was surprisingly springy. I woke with a headache, caused, no doubt, by too much anti-fly flit in the air, but the headache was a welcome change from the gut pains which now had subsided. ‘Jean and her boy friend are still out at the club, but you must have tea before you get back to HQ.’ The cantatrice and her lanky, lugubrious husband now began the ritual of plugging in electric kettles and toasters. I felt too weak even to offer to help with all the gadgets. Gloomily I watched the elderly couple going round opening shutters, never quiet for a minute. These two have no pleasure in one another’s company, and their nerves are frayed. ‘When will you be back from Agra? Tomorrow? By lunchtime?’ ‘How can I possibly be back by lunchtime?’ ‘I only wanted to know. By dinner-time?’ ‘Possibly.’ ‘By 7 o’clock?’ ‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it...’ ‘That’s quite all right so long as I know.’
Suddenly, girlish laughter breaks in on the drab household as the pretty daughter, with wet carrot mop, returns from bathing. Now one sees why Jean, as a secretary, shows little initiative and shuts herself from her surroundings. Her twittering stupidity protects her from the depression that must set in if she looked around her. Her boy friend had come to life, but, in the family atmosphere of afternoon tea, he soon subsided back to silence. By the time we went off to work again, past the avenues of trees, we had nothing left to say to one another.
Back at the Secretariat Jean McFarlane became, once more, little more than a cipher. I dictated, for the fourth time, a wretched piece about the problems of leave in India. Jean said she was beginning to know it by heart. When the day’s work was over and I thanked her for the expedition to her home, she said, ‘That’s quite all right. Come whenever you want to. Just propose yourself.’
VICEROY’S SPEECH
Thursday, February 17th
Went with the Viceregal party to hear the Viceroy’s speech to the Legislative Assembly. No definite change of policy, but the same terms offered with such conviction that it must have impressed all there that heard it. (The voice was less sad than usual.) This speech was full of noble sentiments and fine phrases. (‘Quick as a sword is drawn from its sheath.’) Some of it extremely firm, and when he was at his firmest he said, ‘My experience as a soldier prompts me to say this.’ The comparisons of England’s troubles with India and England’s troubles with Scotland, with the French Canadians were good, and it seemed to me typical of Wavell’s honesty that he should then have touched on our difficulties in Ireland — which are not yet settled. ‘I firmly believe,’ he said, ‘it is every man’s intention in Britain that India should thrive — be an independent country.’ There was not a crowded house: nor much of a demonstration, though it was generally considered the speech went well. (Congress members forbidden the Hall: they are apt to be noisy.) The pomp and procession was impressive. The Viceroy looked an old man — white, not grey, haired. The various Cabinet members were pointed out; some of them wearing very exaggerated turbans and puggarees looked like strange fish or butterflies.
Friday, February 18th
It takes a great person not to become affected by this regal ceremonial and continuous sychophantic deference. Lord Wavell has this quality of greatness: at worst he becomes bad-tempered, but this is understandable.
After lunch I had a walk round the garden with Wavell. He said the Japs had suddenly attacked in Burma in great force. He couldn’t imagine how such numbers hadn’t been detected in spite of the fact that the Japs move at night, lie in wait all day, and need practically no communications. (They carry food for eight days on them.) Wavell thought it would take some considerable time before we were able to clear up the trouble in this part.
At last I feel fairly at ease with Wavell, and he seemed quite interested to hear of my itinerary and plan of campaign.
NORTH-WEST FRONTIER
Sitting in a eucalyptus grove planted by Lutyens, suddenly I found myself surrounded by servants. Word had come that I was to leave forthwith for the North-West Frontier. We ran in and did rough packing: within three minutes I was ready for departure. I started to give out largess to each servant but, with typically childish amusement, they ran out with a large box.
‘Servants’ box! Servants’ box!’ They all took up the cry and, before my eyes, pushed the rupee notes into the slot. Everyone
was laughing, and I drove away to a cry of ‘Servants’ box! Servants’ box!’
I was the only passenger in the aircraft to Peshawar. We ran into heavy rainstorms, and vast areas of wheat fields below were flooded. The Indian pilot beckoned me to sit in the co-pilot’s seat by him in the nose of the aircraft. The rain lashed against the triplex nose of the aircraft and filtered inside. Clouds enveloped us — we were flying blind, and soon the pilot shouted: ‘We’re going back. There are hills near Peshawar.’ We returned to Lahore. As we landed the pilot said, ‘It’s not what you expect. The engines cut out while we were in the clouds, but I didn’t say anything as I didn’t want to alarm you.’ The one daily train to Peshawar had left two minutes ago and no aircraft was to leave for a few days. Later a Dakota arriving from and returning to Chaklala was prepared to lift me back there — from where I’d be only half an hour away from Peshawar. The Dakota appeared with a large crew, but only one passenger: a little Red Cross nurse, recently recovered from amoebic dysentery. We were told the weather was bad, and it was. After a few preliminary bumps and bangs the livid-faced nurse ran over to me saying, ‘Do you mind? I’m not generally frightened, but perhaps since my illness ...?’ I sat holding her hands and patting her shoulders. We were both scared stiff. We watched for an eternity as we flew at only a few hundred feet over the hills on which it would be impossible to crash-land. Once or twice the door of the cockpit was opened for a young man who ran to look from our windows into the haze of cloud that forced us to fly lower and lower. My hands sweated on the hospital nurse’s: there was nothing to do but watch and pray.
