Passage Across the Mersey

by Robert Bhatia

  In reply to her letter about the difficulties of breadmaking without yeast, he wrote:

  What do you mean when you say in India we don’t get yeast – everything rots here, even the human brain – and so yeast is plentiful. Your ambition to know 14 Indian dishes is very high. All you should aim is a) to be able to occasionally make chapattis, b) Lentil Soup, c) Any vegetable soup (Indian style), d) Frying vegetables (All vegetables are cooked in the same style.), e) pancakes, (f) poached – fried – eggs, (g) some types of English sweets, and then you will find me dancing around you in a mood to kiss you. You can get meat in Ahmedabad – I don’t know how they keep it – but I won’t advise you to go alone in that market; either we could go together sometime or the servant could bring us.

  And on 27 February he wrote to Helen about a stroke of luck.

  You know my servant, I asked him in joke whether he will bring meat from the market and whether he eats it. I had expected that he will jump simply – but he said that he has cooked it before and knows how to cook it (only he does not eat it). Of course, we will have to be miles away from egg or meat when my father or mother come – but otherwise I am much happier now that the servant will be able to bring it from the market and cook it, if necessary, for us. The market is 2½ miles [4 km] from here; and though all the other provisions one can get nearby, not meat.

  He worried that Helen might find life as a housewife boring, and described his own domestic strengths and weaknesses:

  I forgot to write something very, very, very important that I have not yet polished my shoes a single time since I left England; it is a complete victory of mine – howsoever reluctantly you may admit – but my other clothes are pretty tip-top. Up till now I have been using winter clothing, but from about a fortnight, I shall have to use summer clothes. Unfortunately my younger brother robbed me of almost all cotton trousers, except four of them. I will have to get a few more soon, also some shirts.

  The second thing important is that besides keeping the lavatory, kitchen etc. clean, I also keep the flat practically free from flies by using Flit and DDT which I spray fairly often. You see, if once flies begin to sit, they make the ceilings and walls look very dirty. You see I am trying to keep the flat in such order that no damage is done to it and it is in a ready condition to be made comfortable by my expert, when she comes. All these things that I write to you are often trivial but beneath them my heart simply rages with the desire of seeing you soon.

  DDT was widely used in the 1950s and it was only in 1962 that Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring began to raise the alarm about it decimating wildlife, particularly bird populations, and being implicated as a cause of certain types of cancer.

  Avadh continued to waver on whether it would be better for him to move back to England. He still thought that there was more scope for career advancement in India and that if he moved back, he would ‘have to give up the wild dreams of going “uppish”’ but he added that it would be worth it so Helen could be in the environment in which she was most comfortable. He also commented, ‘You seem determined to become a scholar of the Indian Religion, history and culture – rather awkward for me – never mind so long as you will not ask questions the answer to which you will get, “the day is glorious”.’ In other words, if she were to ask him too difficult a question, he would merely comment on what a wonderful day it was.

  He also wrote in response to a question of hers about whether kissing in public was frowned upon in India – it was, and still is. She replied:

  I should be tickled to death if when you meet me in Bombay you kiss me in public, because unless I remember I shall automatically lift my face to be kissed and you will automatically want to do it, but I will do my best to remember not to tempt you!

  Don’t worry, I am not going to become a scholar of Indian religions, as you put it, only you will have learned so many things from childhood about which I know nothing at all, and only by reading about the beliefs in India, her fairy tales, etc., can I pick up the background which has surrounded you all your life. One example that I have learned is that asceticism is considered the thing which will bring you nearest to God and is, therefore, one of the highest virtues, whereas here we believe that good works will do more for you than anything else. By understanding this, quite a lot of pieces of the jigsaw puzzle suddenly fell into place, so for a little while, if you will forgive me, I shall read as many of your classics as I can lay hands on. I am very anxious, for example, that I shall not give an opinion in public which perhaps damns the dearest held beliefs of more orthodox Hindus – for the simple reason that I do not want to hurt their feelings or make you unpopular in consequence. The things I do for love of thee!

  *

  Throughout this period, Avadh’s Doctor Brother was negotiating with Kashi’s mother in Delhi. He tried to convince her to summon her husband in the hopes of finalizing a settlement around 4 March, when Avadh planned to visit for the festival of Holi. On 23 February Avadh told Helen that it would be best if she were not in ‘daily waiting’, but that he expected to have news around 6–8 March.

  He wrote: ‘I am going to Delhi on the eve of Holi – you know the festival in which we play with colours by throwing it on each other. I will miss you very much specially then, for I would have loved to see you in all coloured clothes from top to bottom. But that is impossible – but even in the entire gathering of my family, I shall feel lonesome and my mind will just run to you.’

  Helen regretted missing the Hindu festival: ‘I should simply have loved to have seen the Holi Festival – and now I have to wait a whole year – blow it. I hope your family dragged you out and made you have some fun. We shall be quite busy keeping the Hindu festivals and perhaps very quietly and unobtrusively the Christian festivals as well, although unless you wish it we will not keep the latter ones.’

  Avadh wrote on the 24th that if no settlement could be reached at this meeting at Holi, either he would come to England where they would have to live together without being married – a fairly radical suggestion for the day – or Helen should come to India to be married under Hindu law and then they would return to England.

  In a third letter on the 24th Avadh complained about life at the laboratory. He had received somewhat grudging approval to hire a student to help with his research but he complained:

  To get a thing done one has to go on asking shamelessly hundreds of times. Even to get books for the library, I had to ask one thousand times till I was fed up and I told them very frankly that this is not the way in which work is done. And then I was told very apologetically that the list of books that I had given to them has been lost. And so here I am preparing a fresh list. I might not be very competent but if other people say a thing, they might as well see that it is done. Due to the adamant attitude of mine, I am sure to get the books for the library.

  On Saturday 25 February, Avadh apologized for his suggestion that they could live together without being wed.

  Darling in one of my earlier letters, I had implicitly asked you whether we could not live in England without proper marriage. That was in the sheer spirit of desperation and I do hope you will forgive me for it. I did not mean to hurt you by it.

  My dearest love, I simply dream of the time when we could be together. For living with you, I have always dreamt of living in cooperation with one another in all aspects of life. For example, if you think I shall leave you alone in all the house affairs, you are grossly mistaken – of course you will have more time for it and aptitude but when I will come home from work, I shall always be with you poking my nose in everything that you will be doing – darling as I told you there will be no secrets between us – no watertight compartments for anything – of course subject to you having the same opinion. We shall both help each other in everything we do to the best of our ability. To give you an analogy, if you are cooking, say, anything, one hand holds the vessel while the other hand stirs it. Somehow my Indian mind would like to live with you in that sort of cooperation �
�� but, of course, as I have said, if you will want to be left alone with any part of your work items, I will gladly (not really though) leave it entirely to you so far as I am concerned.

  It’s a lovely, very romantic analogy, and I wonder why Dad sometimes worried that he was not as loving in his letters as my mother deserved. He continued:

  Darling I love you in every aspect of your life, where there is love, there is poking of noses – for every affair belongs to one and the same heart. Everything is subject to your approval my love – but we should never try to draw barriers between us. If I do a thing that annoys you or makes you uncomfortable, you will tell me. I will do the same – otherwise there may arise a misunderstanding. This is particularly important between us for even though we love each other, trust each other and are determined to make each other happy and also understand each other – nevertheless, our minds at times because of different backgrounds may be working on different lines, and even though they may be working for the good of each other – yet at times it might become difficult to understand each other – unless explicitly mentioned. I hope you will remember this my darling – I bet you know all this – but I have just said it as it came in my mind.

  Helen responded on 1 March.

  The only reason that I am anxious to marry you in law with all the legal trimmings is the fear that somewhere in the future, in this dreadfully disturbed world, we might get separated and, although governments are quite kind about getting husbands and wives put together again, they are not kind about people who are not husband and wife. For example, if in England I am legally your wife you would never be turned out of England, even if all other Indians had to go, but if I could not prove I was your wife you could be turned out and I might not be allowed to go with you. It is that kind of thing of which I am afraid, so if no solution is reached at Delhi with Kashi’s people, perhaps you would talk to your father and brother about how we could most cheaply be married and what it would then be best for us to do. When they have given their opinions we could have a good think about them and make a decision ourselves. But above all, you are not to distress yourself, because we will get out of this muddle, even if we are paying debts for three years to come. Mercifully none of our creditors would press us for the money, so that if we pay a little regularly every week, we would gradually get ourselves straight. If both of us were working in England, we could pay at least a pound a week in debts and probably much more, depending on rent, salaries etc.

  You say perhaps you write things that hurt me, but you never do. The letters you write are the most beautiful expressions of love any woman could wish to receive and I treasure every one of them. No Englishman (at least very very few Englishmen) would ever bother to write as you do, and as I read your letters I am more and more glad that I’m going to marry you and nobody else. I love you for so many things that words cannot express them, but life has not been very gentle to me and Englishmen have forgotten how to be gentle to their womenfolk, so I appreciate your gentleness most. I also love the wickedness of you too! I am sure our lives will be full of the most peculiar situations and hazards, but being together I think we shall have a good joke over all of them no matter what happens to us.

  Now to get down to business. You scamp, you scallywag, you devil. Never cleaned your shoes in two and a half months! Oh you are naughty – just wait till I see you – I’ll make you walk around with such a shine on your feet that all your friends will remark on it! I can see I shall spend my life chasing after you with a clothes brush, a needle, a flat iron and a shoe brush. You are incorrigible! Whatever will your mother say when she sees you?

  Now I hope you will go to Delhi a little comforted and don’t be afraid to tell me the worst if need be. If there is no other way of doing it, we shall just live together in England, but I hope that we may somehow be married. My heart is with you all the time – you stole it, you wretch – and only the body is not there.

  Ever your adoring,

  Helen

  *

  On 22 February, Avadh wrote again about domestic affairs.

  Today I have spent some time in cooking – but I must warn you that you will have to learn to control your temper while explaining and taking work from the servant – he is providing me with a good exercise on control of tempers. Well, one thing I have cooked – I don’t know how it will taste – take 1 pint of milk and 2 ounces of cornflour. Mix cornflour in 2 tablespoon of milk, thoroughly. Boil the rest of the milk, etc., etc., (Blancmange) you must be knowing how to make it. I wonder how it is going to taste.

  Helen replied: ‘We make blancmange exactly as you do only we put some sugar and vanilla essence in as well to make it tasty. It is very good and not easy to get just right, so I was surprised that you could make it.’

  In a previous letter she had asked him why October was said to be the most dangerous month for catching illnesses in Ahmedabad when it was not by any means the hottest month. On 28 February Avadh explained:

  The weather mystery is like this – May is the hottest month – and very dry – in this season, what to say of human beings, even germs can’t live. But from middle of June, temperature lowers a bit, rains set in and in September and October, it is moist heat – which is the root of all disease. We will have to be damned careful how we eat things. We cannot rely on servant but see ourselves that everything – vegetables etc. are washed properly with potassium permanganate – if eaten raw. Rules are not difficult to follow but they are essential in order to remain O.K. In Ahmedabad, the weather remains pleasant only in November, December, January, and February. But evenings say after 9 p.m. are usually always cool.

  In order for Avadh to send the money he had promised Helen, he first had to satisfy the Bank of India that it was necessary to send the money abroad. Accordingly he asked Helen to follow a rather convoluted procedure:

  a) Give me the address of John. b) You impersonate yourself as John and write (typed letter on air sheet) stating that I borrowed from you (John) the sum of £75 (this is the amount I can share) in December and that you (John) will feel obliged if a speedy return of the loan is effected. This air letter will be from John although you might as well send. There is no use troubling him. But if you like you can ask him to do it – and tell him that it should be written to me as if I borrowed the money.

  I will get the permission for sending the money to him. If the permission is not granted, then we shall send the money by collecting British Postal orders of £2 every day for which no permission is necessary.

  When Helen replied to this a couple of weeks later, she was obviously tickled by all the complications.

  You will have by now received a letter which I wrote as if I was John – I hope that sounds right! I was laughing all the time I was writing – I had to write it myself as I tried to get John on the phone three times but he was engaged. I will, however, just tell him that I had used his name because you want to send me some money and it will be quite all right. He is a good scout and as long as we don’t land him in jail, he will not worry.

  On 2 March, Helen wrote, knowing that Avadh would not receive her letter until after his return from the negotiations with Kashi’s mother in Delhi. The wait must have been excruciating, but she managed to write in a positive tone.

  This letter will reach Ahmedabad after you have left for Delhi and when you come back and read it our future will have been decided, for better or for worse, but whatever the verdict is you are not to worry unduly because there are ways out, even if they are somewhat expensive! It is when there is no way out that it is time to worry.

  I was interested about staying at the hill station as long as possible. I do not know whether you must take all your holidays in May or whether they can go on into June, but I think I would like to see how long I can endure the heat and then go to the hill station when I cannot bear it any more (with you if possible). In other words, I would rather spend the end part of the very hot period in the hills than the beginning and have to come back before it
starts to get a little cooler. I can often endure things quite a long time if I have something to look forward to and a definite date, so that I could say to myself, ‘next week or the week after we shall go away’ and so endure the interim period. Dr Chico said I should try to get a bit fat before I come to India and I will try to do so. On the voyage I will eat and rest a lot, and once I know I can come I shall be able to eat better here and will rest better. How about you in the great heat – do you think you will stand it all right?

  Don’t think I do not understand how a man’s love of a woman is made up both of body and mind and spirit. I understand very well, my darling, because I love you too. You never hurt me darling and as for wanting to punish you – good God, do you think I am a sadist? All I ever worry about is not being able to share with you the immediate troubles that surround you, because I keep thinking to myself, ‘I could have saved him that’, or ‘he should not have had to bother with this or that’. I appreciate how you are trying to take care of the flat – how good of you to wage war on the flies and other creeping things.

  You know, it would be fun to try and write a book together, even a detective novel!!! I am sure that in both our lives so much has happened to us that we must have the material for 20 books, never mind one. We could write one about India for example and sell it in England, and about England and sell it in India! I should like to do something that, when we were finished, we could say ‘we did it together’.

  A kiss on the tip of your nose.

  All my love and devotion,