balconies, porticoes – mad bits and pieces that I later knew to be Renaissance or Palladian or Gujerati or Moghul or Persian. Or, making the eye dizzy, buildings voluminously Victorian, overshadowing all the rest, as if drugging the city with the fatuous rhodomontade of empire. All this made a child’s heart jump, seeing what looked like awonderful, convoluted joke, beyond understanding but not enjoyment. The sunlight leapt from domes and windows and tiled walls. Particles of dust in the dirty air began to shimmer. We were dazzled by the assault on the senses, and then glad to hurry into the high cool lobby of the hotel.
A big fan turned lazily with a weary electric hum. A man in a tightly wound turban and a crisp white cotton tunic, in style and length rather like a frock-coat, awaited us solemnly. Suddenly his serious brown face was slashed with the brilliant white of his smile. He raised his hands to breast level in the attitude of prayer and briefly bowed his head. Then he addressed my father.
‘Ah, sahib,’ he said with great enthusiasm, ‘I have for you jolly good rooms. On second floor, best front place, gussul khana adjacent. Very pleasant, tip-top view. You see this way Museum, that way University. And maidan, very green and nice. Also, you see sky, happy breeze and peaceful sleeping at nighttime.’
He clapped his hands, then with frowning dignity gave instructions in a native tongue to a small lithe lad, hardly bigger than I was, who seemed to double as bell-boy and porter. The little fellow seized upon one of our lighter travel bags, indicating indignantly when we tried to help him that he would fetch the rest later, and though it was a struggle for him he insisted on leading the way up the stairs. As we followed up the elegant curve of the broad steps, with rusted iron banisters on our right, I puzzled over this English I had just heard, and snatches of which I had caught on the dockside and in the street. This language was mine, but not quite mine, misted and veiled with hints and shades that made me, even then, smile with surprise – not because I felt that what they said was in any way wrong , but because of its novelty. It seemed like an extension of English expression, nicely elastic, not an impediment.
At the head of the stairs we found that our rooms wereon the first floor, not the second, and at the back, not the front. The bathroom was not ‘adjacent’ but a short way down the hall. My father, experienced in the ways of India, did not complain or demand changes. The rooms we were shown were tall and dim and quiet, the quieter for being at the back, away from the busy road. Ornate iron bedsteads were anchored like galleons on the green sea of the tiled floor where numdah rugs with simple, childlike designs also floated. Long louvred shutters led onto two dangerous-looking balconies. The view beyond the shutters was not airy maidan nor the great swelling dome of the Museum, but the fading yellowish wall of a house across the alleyway. Tinkles of family laughter and smells of home-cooking punctuated our days, filtering in through the louvres.
*
‘Do take the boys out,’ said the wan voice, as feeble and shaky as a new-born kitten, ‘they’re making such a row .’
My mother did not like the big city, with the heat and the noise, and so much evidence of the scars and sores of Indian life. Her Indian world had been, and would be again, the lazy life of the Raj in a military cantonment. And after four years in England she was finding it hard to acclimatize to the sweaty heat of Bombay. But we were stuck in the city for a week while my father awaited his orders. Nothing much to do, for any of us, morn to night. My mother went shopping, slowly, with wet patches spreading in the armpits of her frock and tendrils of fair hair growing dark with sweat at the back of her neck. She had to buy hot-weather clothes for the family, loose cotton garments and sandals and hats against the sun. Looking for
A big fan turned lazily with a weary electric hum. A man in a tightly wound turban and a crisp white cotton tunic, in style and length rather like a frock-coat, awaited us solemnly. Suddenly his serious brown face was slashed with the brilliant white of his smile. He raised his hands to breast level in the attitude of prayer and briefly bowed his head. Then he addressed my father.
‘Ah, sahib,’ he said with great enthusiasm, ‘I have for you jolly good rooms. On second floor, best front place, gussul khana adjacent. Very pleasant, tip-top view. You see this way Museum, that way University. And maidan, very green and nice. Also, you see sky, happy breeze and peaceful sleeping at nighttime.’
He clapped his hands, then with frowning dignity gave instructions in a native tongue to a small lithe lad, hardly bigger than I was, who seemed to double as bell-boy and porter. The little fellow seized upon one of our lighter travel bags, indicating indignantly when we tried to help him that he would fetch the rest later, and though it was a struggle for him he insisted on leading the way up the stairs. As we followed up the elegant curve of the broad steps, with rusted iron banisters on our right, I puzzled over this English I had just heard, and snatches of which I had caught on the dockside and in the street. This language was mine, but not quite mine, misted and veiled with hints and shades that made me, even then, smile with surprise – not because I felt that what they said was in any way wrong , but because of its novelty. It seemed like an extension of English expression, nicely elastic, not an impediment.
At the head of the stairs we found that our rooms wereon the first floor, not the second, and at the back, not the front. The bathroom was not ‘adjacent’ but a short way down the hall. My father, experienced in the ways of India, did not complain or demand changes. The rooms we were shown were tall and dim and quiet, the quieter for being at the back, away from the busy road. Ornate iron bedsteads were anchored like galleons on the green sea of the tiled floor where numdah rugs with simple, childlike designs also floated. Long louvred shutters led onto two dangerous-looking balconies. The view beyond the shutters was not airy maidan nor the great swelling dome of the Museum, but the fading yellowish wall of a house across the alleyway. Tinkles of family laughter and smells of home-cooking punctuated our days, filtering in through the louvres.
*
‘Do take the boys out,’ said the wan voice, as feeble and shaky as a new-born kitten, ‘they’re making such a row .’
My mother did not like the big city, with the heat and the noise, and so much evidence of the scars and sores of Indian life. Her Indian world had been, and would be again, the lazy life of the Raj in a military cantonment. And after four years in England she was finding it hard to acclimatize to the sweaty heat of Bombay. But we were stuck in the city for a week while my father awaited his orders. Nothing much to do, for any of us, morn to night. My mother went shopping, slowly, with wet patches spreading in the armpits of her frock and tendrils of fair hair growing dark with sweat at the back of her neck. She had to buy hot-weather clothes for the family, loose cotton garments and sandals and hats against the sun. Looking for
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