If the blackouts were not due to rain, we could climb a flight of steps which led up to the roof of the building and take advantage of the breeze—to the extent it is possible to talk about fresh air in Calcutta. But every night, weather permitting, Hseng Noung made a habit of going up on the roof to practice breathing and do some exercise. Her pregnancy was progressing fast and her belly now was a little round.
In the daytime, to escape the stifling heat of our room, we went out whenever we could. Almost every morning, we had breakfast at the Blue Sky, a hippie joint further down Sudder Street, or as a special treat, walking ten metres down the street we entered another world and had ham, eggs and tea at the Fairlawn.
At the Blue Sky, Western and Japanese freaks in motley gear, some even with bells sewn on their dirty cotton trousers, drank fruit juice, ate wholewheat bread and smoked dope. It was always crammed with customers trying to discuss Krishnamurti or Carlos Castaneda over the shouts of the waiters. By contrast, the quiet and serene Fairlawn seemed to belong to another era. It consisted of a colonial-style building surrounded by an elegant, formal English garden in a private, walled-in compound. Naturally, it attracted a more affluent and more conservative clientele.
The proprietor, Mr Smith, was a reserved ex-British Army officer who fought on the Imphal-Manipur front during World War Two. His wife, an Armenian lady born in Calcutta, was more imperiously British in speech and manner than anything you can find today in Bournemouth. The Smiths lived elsewhere and were not always on the premises. But every afternoon, Mrs Smith would make her stately entrance in a chauffeur driven, grey Ambassador, clutching two white poodles fondly to her bosom.
She always dressed formally for supper and entertained her guests with spirited conversations, the flow of which were conducted by the dramatic flourishes of a cigarette that projected from the end of a long and slender jet holder. Interrupting her conversation to give orders in Bengali to the discreetly positioned bearers clothed in splendid ceremonial uniforms, the pukka Mrs Smith grandly continued that plucky memsahib tradition of yore.
Most of their guests were tourists who wanted to experience the last afterglow of the British Raj in Calcutta. There were also some hotel residents, who, ironically, were Soviet and other Eastern bloc technicians who worked as consultants for West Bengal’s Marxist government. The Smiths never said much to or about them. But we could sense they conceived it as an ominous sign of the new order in West Bengal that the old pukka sahibs in their starched collars and bow ties had had to give way to rough, taciturn Russian peasant types who stuck to themselves and ignored the other guests.
But some of the long-timers were also Westerners. One was Tony, a young, lively Australian who lived in Hong Kong where he claimed to be based as a freelance photographer, covering Asia for various travel magazines. He attracted our suspicion by staying for weeks at the Fairlawn, doing no photography and giving the impression of being far more affluent that the average, thrifty freelancer we usually meet in this part of the world. We thought he might be involved in some other business, but not wishing to be the ones to cast the first stones, we asked him no questions.
Our own pretext for staying in Calcutta longer than ordinary tourists do—the weeks were going by and there had still been no message from Kewezeko—was that we were stranded, waiting for money. A plausible explanation, since Indian banks are notorious for delays in processing overseas payments.
Having some kind of excuse was absolutely essential. In New Delhi, the number of foreigners is quite high and the city is large and spread out. There are countless places to move to, should you attract the attention of the authorities. Calcutta is an entirely different story, for, despite its huge Indian population, the city is small in area and the places where foreigners normally stay are few: just Sudder Street and some other hotels and guest houses in the run-down quarter immediately east of the Indian Museum on Chowringhee.
We frequently observed plainclothes policemen, easily recognisable with their walkie-talkies in hand, in the neighbourhood. We suspected they were looking out for black marketeers, illegal money changers, smugglers and possibly also foreigners who had overstayed their visas. In other words, the sort of clientele that usually hangs out in the Sudder Street area.
Thus, since our return to Calcutta on May 22 we had kept a low profile, particularly after our Indian visas expired on July 1.
It was impossible to reapply at the immigration office for another extension as the reason we had given when we had applied for our first extension was that we were travelling south and planned to leave the country by ferry to Sri Lanka. That was why we had no air ticket which they had asked to see when we made our application.
It was time to exercise further initiatives. The visa extension booklet, lavishly embellished with chops, signatures and photos, was as complex, elaborate and long-winded as the bureaucracy itself. But the actual date until which our visas had been extended was simply written with an ordinary ballpen in black ink: 1.7.1985.
We had noticed when it was filled in that the clerk had used the cheapest ballpen available in India, a 75 paisa yellow plastic Bic. So we bought one from a street-side stall, and, with this minimal investment, contrived in the Fairlawn’s garden another month’s stay in India: until 31.7.1985.
With all these faked documents in hand, we decided we might just as well add something more just to make our collection as spuriously bone fide, and misleadingly confusing, as possible. The wildlife photographer trick had worked in New Delhi, so why not strengthen that with some kind of corroboration?
We finished our tea, put our documents in my shoulderbag and went around the corner to the second hand bookshops in Free School Street. Almost immediately, we found some wildlife magazines from Australia. It was the panda emblem of the World Wildlife Fund we were looking for. We soon tracked it down and went back to our room. I cut the emblem out with a razor along with the address in Switzerland and pasted it at the top of a blank sheet of typing paper to resemble a printed letter-head.
For the reasonable fee of two rupees, I hired time on a typewriter from one of the public scribes who always sit outside every Indian post office. I composed a letter of introduction to the Home Ministry in New Delhi. It requested the authorities to provide “all necessary help and assistance to the wildlife photographer Bertil Lintner” who was touring India’s game sanctuaries. Among the ones on the itinerary were, naturally, Kaziranga in Assam and Keibul-Lamjao in Manipur.
Once written, we had the letter photocopied at a grimy hole-in-the-wall photo shop. The copy, however, still showed a faint shadow along the edges of the cutting from the magazine. We painted over that with white correction ink and had a second copy made, which looked perfect. The shopkeeper displayed no curiosity about this odd performance, simply standing by impassively waiting for his rupee.
Our new document was stapled together with all our other papers. Armed with this extensive collection of official-looking documents we were certain, if we were stopped at a checkpoint in the northeast, any local policeman would be suitably impressed.
But we were rapidly running out of time. It was disturbing that there was still no word from Kewezeko, despite two telegrams. Hseng Noung’s pregnancy was becoming increasingly visible and there were by now only two or three months left before the baby would be born.
The thought of returning to Thailand never occurred to us. Always we were certain of ultimate success and in any case by now had reached a point of no return. Our forged visa extension would work at some remote checkpoint in the northeast, but we could certainly expect the officials at the airport to be more sophisticated. Several newspapers and magazines had paid in advance for stories I had promised them. From a professional point of view, it would have been a devastating loss of face if we had to go back after spending several months in India.
Plans for the journey were made during some sweltering days in Calcutta in the summer of 1985
Hseng Noung was even more adamant than I t
hat we should carry on. When we had married in 1983, one of the promises I had given her was that one day we would return to the jungles of Burma to stay for a substantial length of time. Several of Hseng Noung’s old friends had written to her as well, saying how much they wanted to see her again.
So patiently we went on waiting for some sign from Kewezeko, still waking up in the morning to the humble voice of the newspaper man, saying “Morning paper, sir! Morning paper, sir!”—and still sipping our afternoon teas in the Fairlawn’s garden.
At the beginning of July, more than six weeks since we had returned to Calcutta, we were sitting drowsily in the afternoon heat in the Fairlawn’s garden, finishing our second pot of tea. Suddenly, I spotted a familiar looking figure hurrying along the path to the reception desk. I leapt to my feet.
“Kewezeko! At last! Didn’t you get our telegrams?” I cried out, discretion blown to the wind by my astonishment.
“Yes, I did. Yesterday morning. I left by train on the same day.”
Our first express telegram had taken more than a month to reach Kohima. The others were presumably still on their way.
That night we went out for a meal together, choosing a quiet air-conditioned Chinese restaurant in Free School Street where we could talk quite openly in a secluded corner.
“I’ve tried everything I could think of. But the contacts in Dimapur and Kohima insist they can’t do anything unless they get orders from general headquarters.” Kewezeko gesticulated with his chopsticks.
The delay may have been due to a recent border conflict between Nagaland and Assam. The controversy centred around some disputed reserve forest areas along the two states’ common border. Nagaland claimed them as parts of its territory and accused the Assamese authorities of having resettled illegal immigrants from Bangladesh there. There was a common belief that Muslim state politicians in Assam did not want to repatriate the illegals. By letting them stay they would be able to build up a broader power base of potential voters for future general elections. But to let the Bangladeshi settle in Assam proper could be perceived as a provocation by the Hindu majority there.
On June 4, shooting had erupted between the respective police forces of Assam and Nagaland at a small border town called Merapani. The clash left several policemen dead and the border areas had been sealed off—which was bad news for us. The situation was further complicated by the related arrests of a number of Naga student activists at Jorhat in Assam. They were charged with carrying seditious documents, illegal weapons and secret maps of the disputed border area. Curiously, the Naga students had been travelling in a jeep which belonged to a Deputy Inspector General of the Nagaland police.
“And then there was an ambush recently. On the main Dimapur-Kohima road. And in Manipur, Muivah’s men have blown up two bridges. The area now is full of policemen and soldiers,” Kewezeko continued.
The Indian authorities have a habit of casting around for “foreign hands” to accuse of stirring up ethnic and political strife in their country. If I were arrested there, having received help from Naga students, the authorities would have a perfect scapegoat to serve up on a golden platter.
But we had no choice. We could not wait any longer and drew up a new plan there in the Chinese restaurant in Free School Street. Kewezeko would return to Kohima and inform his contacts there of our imminent arrival, clearance or no clearance from their headquarters. In the meantime, to escape the Calcutta monsoon and avoid prolonging our already overextended stay at the Salvation Army we would go up to the hill station of Darjeeling and wait there. Then, we would meet up in Darjeeling and go together to Dimapur where arrangements would be made to have a hiding-place ready for us when we arrived. No matter how events unfolded we were determined not to return to Calcutta.
Kewezeko stayed on with some friends in Calcutta for a few days while we made preparations for the trip. Despite our annoyance with the NSCN’s lack of response to our request for help across the border, it was a relief to have him there. At least, contact had been re-established and we had realised that communicating by telegrams was not such a good idea in India.
To visit the Immigration Office and apply for a permit for Darjeeling, mysteriously required by foreign visitors, was untenable. The alternative was to fly to Bagdogra near Siliguri in the foothills just below Darjeeling; on landing, air passengers automatically get a two-week permit for the hill station and surrounding villages.
Because of the endless delays, we once again found ourselves running out of money. It would take too long to send a telex to Europe and wait for more transfers.
I suggested that we try the well off Tony; he had mentioned that he would soon be leaving for Bangkok so we could ask him for a loan in return for a certificate which would entitle him to withdraw the same amount from an account I had with a bank in Bangkok.
“But you’ll have to tell him the truth. We can’t expect him to trust us unless we’re open with him,” Hseng Noung pointed out.
We went over to the Fairlawn that night and knocked on his door. He seemed glad to see us and invited us in.
“Tony,” I began. “You might have been wondering why we’re staying for weeks in this nightmare.”
“Yes, of course. But that’s your business.”
“Well, we’ve got a problem and need your help.”
I explained in detail what our plans were, where they had gone wrong and why we needed 200 US dollars. Then, I handed my passbook and a certificate which I already had written and had had attested.
“No problem, mate. I’ll give you the money. And since you trust me, I trust you, too. You might have been wondering what I’ve been doing here for weeks also.”
I said I indeed had, but that was his business, I mentioned we had suspected drugs at first but that he did not seem to be that kind of person, so we had decided that he was either a gold or diamond smuggler. Tony smiled.
“As a matter of fact, both. Gold into India and diamonds out. And now one of our couriers has run away with his load. The group I’m working for is trying to find him. I can’t leave until I get a clearance from my boss.”
At the end of this exchange of revelations and when we had got the money, we exchanged addresses. Tony urged us to look him up when we got to Hong Kong, where we expected to end up our overland trip.
“I’d never dare to do what you’re doing, Tony.”
Tony grinned.
“What you and Hseng Noung are up to is far more dangerous, mate. If I hadn’t heard you tell me it yourself, I’d say you were out of your minds.”
“See you in Hong Kong, then,” I said as we left and walked back across the street to the Salvation Army.
We needed only one more thing before we could leave. I had seen some good-looking wigs in Calcutta’s New Market, made from real human hair. I thought it would be a useful substitute to my hair dyes just in case I had to change my appearance fast. So the day before we left Calcutta, I went to New Market—a gigantic complex of redbrick market stalls a block away from Sudder Street. At first I felt self-conscious trying on a number of wigs, especially as I attracted a lot of attention from passers-by. Hseng Noung kept up a teasing patter as we had agreed she should do. My cover story about belonging to a drama troupe was not needed since the stall-holder was only interested in getting a good price for the wig, not what I was going to use it for. When I had made my choice, we beat the price down to 150 rupees.
It was July 5. Looking in my diary, I found that we had spent exactly 45 days in Calcutta this time. We took a taxi from the Fairlawn, with Tony waving us off, to Dum Dum airport.
“This time we’ll make it.” I clasped Hseng Noung’s hand in the taxi as it noisily rattled through the bumpy streets of the northern suburbs.
Confusion reigned in the departure lounge when we got to the airport. Groups of people were arguing fiercely all over the check-in hall while others scurried about past baggage that was heaped at random throughout the building. After some time we found out that a cargo pl
ane had crashed, damaging the runway, earlier that day. All flights were cancelled until further notice.
An Aeroflot jet, on route from Hanoi to Moscow, had landed shortly before the accident and was unable to take off until the runway had been repaired. We were told our flight to Bagdogra might leave on the following day—but nobody could say for certain. The clerk at the Indian Airlines counter advised us to go back into town. That was not advice to our liking so we started asking around. Before long, we discovered that some passengers had been issued vouchers for the Airport Hotel, a ten-minute rickshaw drive away. I went into the head office to see about getting a voucher.
“Sorry, Sir. That’s only for transit passengers. You’re joining the flight here in Calcutta.”
Determined not to give up, I went to the airport manager. His office was pandemonium. I joined forces with three stranded Indian passengers to press our demands, by fair means or foul, on the beleaguered official.
“This is disgraceful. You’re pushing us back into town where there’s no accommodation available,” was the opening salvo from a small emaciated passenger, neatly dressed in a Western suit and clutching an attaché case.
“We’re honourable air passengers and not miscreants,” a middle-aged man chimed in.
“My pregnant wife is waiting outside,” was my contribution.
“But I’ve told you only transit passengers are entitled to free hotel accommodation,” snapped the manager.
“But we’re in transit also. We’re not belonging to Calcutta. This is not our native place also,” the fourth stalwart intervened.
The argument went on for about an hour until eventually, simply to get us off his back, the manager snatched the vouchers from a pigeon hole and flung them down on the counter.
Land of Jade Page 6