White Butterflies

by Colin Mcphedran

  We climbed down and wandered off towards the village. The young people I had befriended were there to greet me but my Tamil friend was ill at ease. He never spoke to them in the vernacular. A couple of the villagers spoke a smattering of English and it was to them that he directed his conversation. History had taught me that India was battling the caste system that kept its people apart, so I accepted that my friend was following the traditions of the day.

  Back at school, word got around that the boy from Burma had an unhealthy fascination with village life. I was sometimes teased about befriending the younger boys and girls who occasionally ventured out of their villages to meet me at the school gates.

  During this time I got to know another Anglo–Burmese, a girl whose family had migrated to Bangalore and who was a fellow pupil. Hillary was great fun. She was very athletic, with boundless energy. She was a link to my country. We always talked in Burmese. It was fun to say what we liked about the people around us. One day I mentioned that I thought the Anglo–Indians were conceited.

  ‘It seems as if most of the students at school who are of mixed blood are ashamed of their Indian connection.’

  She turned on me. ‘Everyone is talking about your friendship with those village kids.’

  ‘What’s the big deal? I like playing with them and, besides, they’re happy with their lot.’

  We remained friends, but I could never get her to come with me to see these good people for herself. I felt dissatisfied, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  Dr Beer had a very different attitude from my classmates. He was not a wealthy man and so the family did not get away much in the holiday season. I had formed a close bond with one of the Indian servants, who one day approached me.

  ‘Please, would you do me the honour of visiting my family during the school holiday?’ he ventured politely.

  ‘Thank you. I would love to, but I had better talk to Dr Beer about it.’

  Dr Beer was enthusiastic.

  ‘It is an excellent plan. It will give you a fine opportunity to learn more about village life and observe the customs of the people.’

  We made arrangements to set off on a train journey to the servant’s village in the Nilqiri Mountains, south of Bangalore.

  ‘I’m going to travel with him in a third-class compartment,’ I told Dr Beer. ‘I would be embarrassed to travel in style when he can’t. Besides, it will be an interesting way to go.’

  I had never appreciated just what the natives had to endure when travelling in this vast land and I was excited at the prospect of being with them. As the train chugged in, it looked like a slow-moving centipede. Hanging off the sides of the carriages were hordes of people with arms outstretched in balance. Others sat quite comfortably, cross-legged on the roofs of carriages, oblivious to the risk of nodding off to sleep and sliding to their deaths.

  When the train came to a standstill my friend grabbed me. ‘Quick! We must get in now.’

  He pushed me through an open door which was discharging other travellers. We pushed and shoved our way along the narrow central corridor, pounced on a tiny space and threw our bags down before sitting on them. The trip would take a few hours before we changed for the mountain line.

  As the train pulled out, I thought again of the last train trip in Burma I had taken under very different circumstances – the trip to Myitkyina. The two had some similarities. Most of the passengers then had also been of South Indian stock, fleeing home from the invading Japanese. Even the composition of the passengers – mothers and children – and the odours of their bodies were the same as on that fateful trip. The only things different now were the looks on the faces of the passengers. They were a happy and boisterous bunch, whereas those on the Burma train had been sad and fearful as they constantly looked out for the next air raid.

  We arrived at a station at the foot of the mountains. I was exhausted, my limbs were sore and my clothes smelled of tobacco. Everybody of all ages seemed addicted to the common rolled-leaf cigarette, the bedi.

  A little puffing Billy with three open carriages in tow, somewhat like a tram car, pulled into the station. There was ample seating and it was a pleasure to be able to stretch out and enjoy the journey up the mountains. The tiny train followed mile after mile of tea plantations as it ground its way up the steep track.

  ‘This train journey must surely rank as one of the most pictur-esque in the world,’ I said, half to myself. My companion flashed me a big smile.

  Then the grinding clatter of the central cog line that helped pull the little engine up the steep grades stopped. We had arrived at our destination and were greeted at the station by the house boy’s relatives. Having been raised with the Oriental custom of living with relatives, I was not at all surprised to see so many there.

  Coonoor was a delightful little township. The air was clean and crisp. The town was the centre of the tea-processing industry and also the site of one of India’s most prestigious girls’ schools, Hebron.

  We declined an offer of a pony-cart ride to the village which was only a short distance away. I preferred to walk with the people who had made a day of greeting us.

  The family home was on a small block of land that sloped down to a creek. Rows of Indian corn appeared ripe for harvesting. It was a clean mud-floor dwelling and I was invited to eat. We talked after a fashion, a bit of English and a bit of Tamil.

  ‘Your country?’

  ‘It is similar to your own region,’ I said, waving my hands to try to convey the meaning.

  The family seemed delighted. As the night closed in, they lit kerosene lanterns and everybody prepared for sleep. I was shown a large earthenware container just outside the front door and invited to scoop cold water out and wash for the night.

  Our stay was to be a week. The days flew by; the weather was fine and cool, being what South Indians call the mid-season. I was taken to the markets in the morning, where the family sold its produce. By mid-morning we would stroll around to various temples and mingle with devotees of the Hindu gods and the Saddhus. Then it was back to the market for the afternoon. I was delighted to help around the stalls and ate with groups of other village stallholders. European residents frequently walked by and many a curious glance was directed at this white fellow amid the group of Indians.

  The journey home to Bangalore was just as chaotic as the first trip. It seemed that Indian people loved trains, for they were constantly moving from one town to another. Every train in every direction was filled to capacity. Arriving at East Bangalore station, the house boy and I took a short-cut by scaling a barbed-wire fence that ran between the railway track and the Beers’ house, instead of trudging the long way round by road. In minutes we had arrived at the door.

  ‘Colin’s back! How was the holiday?’

  ‘It was great.’

  The whole family was happy to see me return unharmed and Dr Beer, beaming, said, ‘Colin, you’re a good boy and no doubt you have made a lot of people happy back in Coonoor.’

  I felt good, but puzzled.

  ‘It was I who had a good time.’

  ‘Yes, and your visit will have lifted the status of your host family.’

  ‘But this is their country and they have a right to feel proud.’

  ‘I know, Colin, but that is how it is.’

  Chapter 17

  Family Life

  The two children closest to me in the Beer family were William and his sister, Lily. Lily was my age, William two years older. They filled the space of the brother and sister I had lost on the trek.

  We were constantly in one another’s company. We ate together, studied in the same room at night and chatted a lot.

  They often begged me to tell them about my experiences as a young boy. ‘Please, Colin, tell us more about Maymyo!’

  William and Lily listened intently to my stories about our socialising with families of different cultures, the camping trips in the jungles and our close connection with villagers around Maymyo.


  ‘How ever could you have been so involved with outsiders and still have close ties with the Church and the Buddhist monastery?’

  ‘Well, Mother always said she wanted us to see the different paths in life.’

  ‘But when did you find time to study your school lessons?’

  ‘Perhaps that is the reason why you are such a clever fellow and I am not!’

  I was joking, but William was a clever fellow and a very hard worker. I did not feel any discomfort or envy at his achievements. I admired him. Anyway, I felt quite comfortable with the situation. I was used to being around a brainy older brother although the two were very different. Robert’s had been an effortless brilliance that he seemed barely to notice but which others paused to admire.

  In turn, however, I was surprised by William’s and Lily’s narrow outlook on life. Nonetheless they were happy. Their world revolved around their family, church and the Christian community.

  They were good for me. My health improved dramatically. I was beginning to shed the feeling of a loner. This in turn improved my relationships with the other kids at school. I became more involved in school activities, especially inter-school sport.

  Cricket was my first love and when the season came around, I set my mind to play well and help lift the school team against the other schools which had dominated for a long time.

  Bangalore boasted some very fine private schools, exclusive and expensive. Bishop Cotton and Baldwin were two outstanding examples. Their students were drawn from wealthy families of Europeans and the ruling class in various Indian states. Both were private boarding schools, run on the lines of famous English establishments. The students were immaculately attired and even I envied the dark green blazers of the Cotton boys and the deep maroon of the Baldwins.

  Clarence High, our school, was a poor cousin. We had no uniform; the students’ families could not afford such luxuries. Despite this lack of identity, Clarence boasted an above-average academic record. It was in sports that our school usually fell short.

  Soon the cricket season was in full swing and, for once, Clarence performed well. We reached the finals and were drawn to play Baldwin for the Bangalore Cup.

  It was quite an event. Because of our school’s poor facilities we had to play on Baldwin’s home ground. It was a magnificent oval, and the parents of practically every Baldwin student were there. We had the support of just a few girls and boys and a smattering of parents.

  We won the toss.

  ‘We will bat.’ This was our captain, a skinny little fellow with the spirit of a tiger. He was an Indian Christian named Joseph, an inspired character who was undaunted by the occasion.

  We went to the crease in the morning and were bowled out before lunch for 120 runs. I thought it was a reasonable total, but not so Joseph. The sight is etched in my memory of this skinny Indian lad jumping up and down waving his arms at the team.

  ‘A hundred and twenty! We should have scored at least a century and a half!’ He meant 150 runs. I could not help laughing at the quaint reference – it was century this, quarter-century that and half-century the other! ‘McPhedran, this is not funny. We are in dire straits here.’

  We took to the field after lunch and it was hot. The score had moved along to double figures when Joseph called me on to bowl.

  Most Indian bowlers were spin bowlers. I was not one of them. I could not spin the ball, but I did possess some accuracy and hurled it down the wicket with all my strength. The first few flew down to the boundary past the wicket-keeper, who persisted in standing over the wicket as for a slow bowler. At the second over I bowled one of the batsmen out. Joseph cheered up considerably.

  ‘Keep up the pace! You have frightened the devil himself out of these fellows!’ The match ended before tea break. Baldwin were all out for a little over a half-century. No catches were taken. I had bowled the whole team out myself! Joseph was ecstatic.

  ‘We have shown them how to play cricket! McPhedran, you saved the day.’

  On the following Monday at morning assembly, to my surprise and joy I was presented with the ball of the match. It was a big moment for me.

  One day, out of the blue, Dr Beer called me aside. He looked quite delighted. ‘We have received some very good news. Your father has arrived in India from Abadan to see you, and he will soon come here with your brother Donald, who has secured leave from the army.’

  I accepted the news with no outward display of enthusiasm but my mind was a turmoil. Would my father take me away with him? Would he be able to tell me anything about my mother? I knew that was a remote possibility, but I could not help the desperate hope. The news from the front in Burma, such as it was, was all dreadful – of camps full of starving prisoners of war and Japanese atrocities against the Burmese people, especially the Anglos. I had heard nothing at all about the refugee trail after I left Calcutta.

  I was filled with a mixture of hope and dread. Indeed, I believe the good Dr Beer was more excited and happy than I was at that point.

  He remarked on this gently one night.

  ‘Colin, you do not seem overjoyed with the news of your father’s visit.’

  ‘I’m all right. It’s just that it has been so long.’

  Actually, I was happy, but many things were going through my mind. How would I react to my father? I still carried deep resentment against him, particularly the question of why, despite the resources available, he had chosen to leave his family in Burma during the invasion.

  The last time I had seen him was a couple of weeks before our school in Rangoon had closed. It had been a brief meeting and under those circumstances saying goodbye had been hardly a sad occasion, as we had fully expected to see him again soon. Now I was to meet again the man who had become a stranger in my mind.

  I was more eager to meet my brother Donald. I was curious to find out what had happened to him after that sad day at the railway station in Maymyo when we had waved him goodbye. My mother had never seemed the same afterwards. I hoped I could tie up some loose ends. But I was also fearful of being interrogated about the trek. Surely, if my father did not ask me about it, my brother would. I was stricken with terror at the thought of being probed. I had hidden the events of the trail inside my mind, and I could not bear to bring them out.

  One day the principal called me to his office.

  ‘McPhedran, your teachers are becoming concerned about your schoolwork. They say there has been an adverse change to your attitude in class. I hope this will be just a temporary state of affairs, while you are waiting to see your father and brother.’

  He was very kind and genuinely sought to help but I remained mute.

  The day of the visit arrived and the Beer family were tremendously excited. The house had been cleaned from top to toe. The vases were full of flowers. Friends from the church gathered for the reunion and within myself I became overjoyed at meeting my own flesh and blood once again.

  My father embraced me and I could see the absolute happiness on the faces of those present. As he spoke in his deep Scottish accent he asked, ‘You’re surely not going to speak to me in Burmese, lad?’

  He had not forgotten that, of all his children, I was the only one who used to reply to him in Burmese.

  ‘No, Father, I will talk to you in English, if that is what you prefer.’

  He glanced sideways at me as if to see whether I was being insolent, but he said nothing.

  The few days together flew by. We shopped for new clothes for me and even had time to have a family portrait taken of the three of us and one of me alone in my new suit.

  I recall very little of the visit. I don’t even remember where they stayed. But I do remember being very glad that they had come to see me.

  According to my brother Donald, the first thing I asked my father was, ‘What have you found out about Ama? And why did you leave us behind in Burma?’

  These were questions to which my father apparently had no ready answers, and I don’t even remember asking them. But Donal
d later told me that I displayed feelings of deep anger at and disappointment in my father. He said I was quite insistent that our father provide answers about our mother’s whereabouts. The only thing on my mind, so far as Donald could tell, was an almost obsessive desire to return to Burma as soon as possible to find her. I certainly remember that desire, for it stayed with me for years while I made every attempt to get back into Burma from Australia. I just don’t recall talking to them about it.

  Thankfully, neither of them asked me about the trek. It seemed to me that my father had no desire to open up the events of the last year or so; in fact, quite the opposite.

  On the last day he took me aside.

  ‘Colin, it will be for the best if you forget the past and set about focusing on your studies. You must aim at getting a good pass in the Cambridge Certificate so that you can attend a decent university.’

  He was back at his old game of directing his children on the paths he had planned.

  I had got the message. Father was returning to Abadan and he was not taking me with him.

  What would have been in store for us children if the war had not intervened? I was getting the distinct impression that boarding school in Rangoon might have been simply the first step in a deliberate plan to remove us altogether from our mother’s Burmese influence. I even had an inkling that boarding school in England might have been on the agenda, as it was for some Anglo–Burmese children, who were sent ‘home’ against the wishes of their heartbroken Burmese mothers. There was no doubt about it, my father was at heart a racist. He did not really want to see the Burmese in us children, at least not in the long term.

  We said our goodbyes and none of us showed any sorrow at parting. But I was deeply saddened. Once again, I felt abandoned. I wondered why a father would not want his son to join him. I decided he must have had his reasons and, of course, it was still wartime.

  After he and Donald had left, I began to pick up the threads of my new life. Nothing concrete had been said about my future, except about my education, and even that had been put in general terms. No mention had been made of a return to Burma. It was all rather unsatisfactory. But I was left with a feeling that, despite everything, a remnant of my family was still alive and would be there if I needed them.