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Cherry at 19 in India |
The Tibetan headmaster, Mr. Lungtok, took me to see the encampment where the road workers lived. It involved walking several miles further into the mountains. The labourers lived in tents because they moved camp as the road progressed. I had expected conditions to be bad, and they were. The men were all at work, and the women and children came out of their tents to greet the visitors politely, though there was a general air of disconsolation. It was March; the end of winter, and a lot of slushy mud lay around. Some youngsters with extended bellies looked to be suffering from worms. Others showed the high colour associated with TB.
A thin elderly man, seriously ill, lay uncovered on the ground. A doctor had been called but hadn’t come, which was not surprising if he had to trudge the same distance as we did.
“What is wrong with him?” I asked.
“He
is dying,” came the reply. Silly of me to ask! Mr. Lungtok added
matter-of-factly, “He is an old one.”
There
was nothing we could do, and not much more to see. Blasting for the roadwork
could be heard in the mountains. Rain clouds threatened, so we turned back and
Mr. Lungtok suggested we stop for a bowl of noodle soup at a makeshift Tibetan
restaurant. It seemed a good idea to give them the business. Two bowls of soup
arrived with two pairs of chopsticks and I wondered how to manage it! The only
thing to do was to follow Mr. Lungtok’s example. I put the bowl to my mouth and
slurped noisily while stirring the noodles to the surface with the chopsticks.
It tasted deliciously of monosodium glutamate.
On
arriving back at the school, we found to our surprise that Chöling Tulku, who had been living next door in
Delhi, was awaiting our return. At Freda’s instigation, the Ranee of Patiala
had agreed that Chöling
Tulku and his entourage could lodge at her empty house in Simla, so he had
arrived with his group of twenty people. But when he had gone to the house, the
chokidar (gardener-caretaker) would
not allow them in as he had received no instruction from the Ranee herself.
Could Mr. Lungtok and I go together and translate, and explain the situation?
Tired
as we were, we set off on another hike to the Ranee’s house. It was like a
palace and the caretaker seemed entirely in his rights not to allow a bunch of
refugees to camp in it. The Indian servants’ quarters at the side appeared to
have been empty for a long time, and I suggested it might have been the
intention that they lodge there. Chöling Tulku was happy with that, but still the caretaker was having none
of it without the Ranee’s approval, which seemed fair enough. A telephone call
to Freda, who was back at Dalhousie, would solve the problem, but the phone
lines were down and there didn’t seem much hope of them being repaired any time
soon. I decided I may as well cut my visit short by a few days and return to
Dalhousie and tell Freda the problem, though this meant I would not have time to visit the
grave of my great-grandfather. Never mind!
At
Chandigarh station, when I asked for a ticket to Pathankot, the man on the
other side of the glass barrier went away and consulted with his superior. They
could not understand that I wanted a third-class ticket and was travelling
alone. In their eyes, it was bad enough that I did not have enough money for a
first-class ticket. But also, what would I do during the afternoon while
waiting for the night train? I didn’t like to admit that I had planned to slip
into the First Class Rest Room and have a quiet nap.
San
Dev, the dapper young ‘In Charge’, insisted he take me on a tour of the wonders
of Chandigarh. When I explained I had previously seen them, he took me home to
his mother and sisters where I experienced firsthand the joys of living in a Le
Corbusier designed concrete box with yard! His family showed immense kindness
to me, a complete stranger. They fed me and gave me a bowl of water to wash
with, then insisted I sleep on a bed in a darkened room, which was probably
just as well since the language barrier limited conversation.
In
the evening San Dev returned from his afternoon shift and took me by tonga back to the station. He was very
pleased with himself because he had found someone to accompany me on my journey
through the night. I would travel in the company of ‘The Inspector of
Ticket Inspectors’.
With
my bag balanced on the head of a porter, San Dev led me across the railway
lines to a solitary carriage in the middle of the criss-crossing rails. With
some difficulty he passed me and my baggage up through the doorway to a
charming middle-aged Indian. I felt a little nervous. Was I being kidnapped?
Was this the proper train? Oh yes, they assured me, it certainly was. In
no time at all, with a rattle and a jolt that nearly threw us across the
carriage, we were hooked up to the rest of the train. It was all very curious,
but the Inspector, Mr Tikka, was a charismatic and intelligent companion
who spoke perfect English. He had a bodyguard, a large rather simple fellow,
who lounged on the luggage rack above me and giggled as he dropped sticky sweet
papers on my head, until Mr. Tikka told him off.
We
had plenty to talk about on the journey because my great-uncle had been
something big in the Indian Railways and travelled about in his own carriage.
My great-grandfather, whose grave I had missed seeing, possessed a gift for
water divining and in later life found water for the Indian Railways in the
bleak deserts of Baluchistan. They could only lay the railway tracks where
there was water for the steam engines. Camping in his tent there (before the
days of photography) he painted atmospheric watercolours to record the
experience. He died at Simla in 1918.
Safely
back at Pathankot I met up with two Australian girls who had been on the same
train, so I introduced them to the delights of an English breakfast in the
First Class Restroom. Then, feeling like a travelling pro, I took the bus up
the twisty mountain road to Dalhousie. I never heard the end of the
negotiations with the Ranee and Chöling Tulku, but I expect something got
sorted out.
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