Fireworks and a Poor Leper Woman

July 3rd

This is Monday------and this goes out today. We went swimming Thursday night, picking up Derek Bok who is in India on a tour for the summer. He is going to Yale Law School. The other night when we were at the Imperial we saw him sitting with three Embassy people and they called Alan over and introduced him to Derek. Derek, it turned out, is in school with several of Alan’s best friends and they had told him to look Alan up. He had gotten into town on the same plane as the returning Bowles and the rumor was that he was Steb Bowles’ nephew. This was the night of the concert and we had seen him sitting next to the Bowles. He’s about the cutest looking boy you’d ever want to see….on the Uncle Gene type. Anyway, after swimming Alan had us to dinner at his house. Mannie went to Simla for the weekend, so did Helen, as well as a lot of other Taj’ers, so it was almost like having the whole place to ourselves. After dinner Derek went home as he was getting up early the next morn to go sight seeing and Paulie Ruffing went to her room, and it was till fairly early, so Alan and I decided to go for a drive. We went over by the old Mosque in old Delhi and from there tried to get lost. We drove all over the country and at one point nearly died of fright when we evidently turned down a wrong street and a soldier jumped out and screamed at us, eyes all wild and gun cocked. Alan slammed on the brakes and hollered, “Sorry” out the window and we did a fast retreat. Don’t know what we ran into but for a minute we thought we were shot.

All along the narrow alleys and streets of the city are lined rows and rows of men, sleeping on charpoys and on the ground. It looks like a city of sleeping men at night and we wondered where all the woman sleep. It is rather eerie to drive through the streets with the headlights constantly lighting up a half-naked sleeping man, as we swing over to avoid a cow in the street.

Friday we all went swimming and then in the evening had our picnic. Rudy Shaw, the Major and one of Barbara’s admirers, had gotten a big load of fireworks. Quite a few people came and they brought pot luck so we had a big table full of food, another full of drinks, and we got all the lounge furniture out for people to sit on…and then let the fireworks take care of the entertainment. The activities soon reached a feverish pitch when everyone had a sparkler in his hand and skyrockets were zooming up every second as block-buster’s went off with deafening explosions and the background of China crackers machine-gunned constantly. It didn’t take long to burn up our supplies and two more batches were sent for. We must have used up almost $40 worth and fireworks being cheap here, that’s a lot of noise.. About 11:30 the food and fireworks were both gone so the party dispersed. Alan and I and Ann Marie Keenan walked Derek Bok home to the YMCA. We were going to show him a short cut through the Imperial Hotel grounds, but when we reached the alley in back of there and tried to go through the gates which open into a courtyard in back of the Free Church, we found them barred for the night. Quite a few Indians were sleeping out in that vicinity and one child began to cough and choke as we went by and for a while, we thought the poor little thing was going to die. We finally moved on and didn’t interfere because if anything had happened to the child as we were trying to help, we’d probably have really been in trouble. Our usual short-cut barred, we went over the wall into the observatory grounds and in the bright moonlight we explored the mysteries of those ancient structures which once told the time of day, year, etc. We climbed the many steps of the one tallest piece and were about three stories high. It is nothing but a thin slice of stonework, the steps starting at a little gate and going straight up and up to a round sun dial at the top. It looks like this (pencil drawing that says “front”: with an elongated deep “U” shape) You probably won’t even get the idea from my drawing; however, it is a huge thing. From the top we can see the whole of Delhi and look down into the hedges and gardens of the observatory grounds and from up there some of the other big structures looked very Buck-Rogerish in the moonlight. It was like being on Mars.

Saturday, we went swimming again, I had dinner with Alan – just the two of us – and he took me to see Maugham’s “Encore”. After the show we sat on the veranda in front of his place on a charpoy and talked for hours. Across the wall from their lawn is a public works building of some kind where people come to work now and then on the building. When they do, they also set up their little charcoal pits and their charpoy’s and live right there. In this bunch there is a child who has nightmares and he screams intermittently all night. We talked about the terrible lives so any people here lead. These workers, for instance go from one job to another, never having a home, sleeping on bare rope charpoys in their dirty rags, cooking on the ground their little pots of rice and chapatis, such a meager existence—yet they go on from year to year raising a family and managing to keep alive. We wondered what the life of the poor leper woman who sits out in front of the Taj must be. Her hands are eaten away to a stump, also her feet. Her face is a horrible sight and she shovels herself along in the dirt, pitifully raising her grotesque arms to passersby for baksheesh, her only sound is a broken cry, over and over, which sounds like,  ‘Aaaaaa..ram.” Where does she go at night? Who takes her pitifully few coins and gives her something to eat? She’s an old woman, think of the years and years she has gone on from day to day, scraping along in the dirt, her hands and feet gradually being eaten away, crying out over and over to hard faced strangers who hurry by…..just in order to keep alive for the next day’s struggle. I try to remember things like that when I feel like complaining.

Yesterday, Sunday, we went swimming early --- about 12:00 and stayed for only a couple of hours. Alan Barbara and I. We rode around old Delhi on the way back taking pictures and then came home and fixed sandwiches. There was a boy up from Bombay who I had a date with so I argued Alan and Barbara into making it a double date and we went to see “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” after which we stopped at Gaylords for Chocolate Sundaes. Alan and I both are very sunburned. I look like a lobster and he looks worse. P.S. My jack-knife is coming along fine…I’m so proud.

Against my better judgement I am enclosing a snap of Alan and Mannie taken at Simla on our trip. This was when we were going up to Wild Flower Hall. The sign speaks for itself. Alan is the one on the right, looking funny as usual. Please, please return it. It is precious to me.

July 3rd continued

Now, look here – seven pages aren’t so much, buck up. This is Thursday…..Last night I got home from work a little late. Alan’s boss, Jay Walker, who I have told you about before, called me in the afternoon screaming for Alan. The Embassy is off in the afternoons because they haven’t had air-conditioning and it’s too hot to work. Jay said that I was the only one he could think of who would know where Alan was. I didn’t but said that I was going to see him so he told me to be sure and have Alan call him about somebody’s passport …….I did the needful and went past his room and woke him up. He looked so sleepy eyed and his face was all marked. He’s been sleeping all afternoon. He hates to be awakened but I took a chance on arousing his ire and did it, but he was sweet. He had to drive over to the Embassy so asked me to go along for the ride and drive the car, which I did, then we went to look at some new apartments which they are finishing at No. Bagwandas Road. It was rather coolish when we got home and I decided to go bicycle riding, so Alan went along. We rode out through some side streets and came out on the big parkway mall opposite the government buildings. The National Stadium was nearby, so we went in to look at their pool. They have the biggest swimming pool in Delhi for Indians who belong to the Stadium Club. There were a lot people swimming and it seemed so funny to see the Sikh’s with their long hair and top-knot covered with baby-bonnet looking oil cloth bathing caps. Past the stadium grounds was an old fort with the formidable looking wall all crumbled and decayed, a huge thing which we approached over a steep inclining road over a moat. At the gate we couldn’t go further. It was all bricked up and looking very Edgar Alan Poe-ish with a small wooden door in it which was locked from the inside. But we peeked though the cracks and didn’t see much. We heard Indian music blaring from down on the road so we coasted likkity-split down and found it coming from the Stadium Cinema. From there we rode up the ramps of the football field. It is a huge arena, very well kept and modern looking – something like Chicago Stadium. From there we rode all the way down the mall, through India Gate and past the Queen Victoria Memorial Statue to Queensway, down Queensway to the Taj. Alan said he had to go Johnnie so bad it was taking the edge off his delight, but otherwise a great time. Poor old T. B. ???????

Then I went to his room and had dinner with him and Mannie and Lois somebody or other, the new file room girl who told us all about her adventures in Holland at the last post.

Alan just now called from downstairs and said, “Hey let’s go swimming…It’s quarter to six and time long ago to go home. So I’ll rush off. Tomorrow is 4th of July and Barbara and I are having a picnic tomorrow after swimming for all kids who didn’t leave Delhi, which isn’t many.

Bye now. I won’t get this mailed until next pouch day…Tuesday so it will probably be bigger still with the whole three day weekend to tell about.