White Butterflies
Page 22
I remembered her quietness on the trek, how she never complained and always tried to support our mother. I recalled vividly the night she was left on the other bank of the flooded creek, alone, and the first whispered news of her death in the army camp on the border of Burma and India.
Chapter 23
Out of India
It was heads down for the finals. I had to try to put all the sadness out of my mind, otherwise I would never have done any school-work at all.
I had taken Mr Subramanium’s advice and had chosen six subjects that I felt would guarantee me a place in an Indian university at least.
They were biology, maths, English, history, geography and French. The first five were not a problem but I had my doubts about French. A second language was compulsory and I had only begun it that year.
My French teacher had said, ‘It will be difficult to catch up on three years’ work. But with your cooperation and hard work I believe I can teach you enough to pass.’
We did it. I just scraped through.
The papers were sent to England for marking, so the results would not be known for months. The break-up party was a moving moment for everybody. It was held in the school assembly hall for the boys and girls of both schools and was an emotional occasion. We would all be moving on, some of us to different places in India and others to their own countries, now that the war was over.
I lost track of Turley after we said our goodbyes at school. I often wondered what had happened to him, but I heard nothing more until that meeting with William Beer at Sydney airport in 1999.
During our discussions about India, William asked me about Ootacamund.
‘What was your school like? I always wondered whether you liked it.’ It had been a far remove from the family life he had led in Bangalore and he was fascinated to hear about it, just as he had listened all those years ago to my tales of my childhood in Burma. In passing, I mentioned the names of some of the students at Breeks. Peter Turley was one of them.
‘I knew him!’ William said, amazed. ‘I met him in the missionary field in India years ago. We became friends. I had no idea that he was a friend of yours.’
‘Oh, yes. But I never heard anything more about him after we left school. Where is he now?’
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, but he became ill and he passed away in India in the missionary field. His wife lives in England. When I get home I will contact her and tell her I have met up with you. She’ll be very interested.’
William went on to explain that Turley’s family and the Beers had been quite close. After leaving Breeks, Turley had enrolled in Madras University and had gone on to theological college. He had become a missionary.
I had known that he came from Hyderabad, the capital of Mysore, where I think his father had been in the Civil Service. Apart from that, I had never learnt anything about his family origins, although from his appearance I had always assumed he was part-Indian or Asian.
It had never occurred to me that Turley would become a missionary. He didn’t seem the type somehow. He had been a pretty robust chap and if anyone had asked me where his future lay, I would have said, ‘In the army’.
I STAYED ON AT BREEKS MEMORIAL for a few days after all the other boarders left, while plans for my future were being set in motion.
Then I caught a train to Madras. I was going to spend some months with a missionary who held the Chair of English Studies at Madras University.
Even before the results of my exams had come through, the professor had enrolled me in the university to begin an Arts course. He was an influential man. But I was not in the right frame of mind. After a few weeks I decided I was not prepared to continue. I said so one morning.
‘Sir, I really don’t think this is the right course for me. I can’t focus on studying just now. My priority is to return to Burma.’
After thinking about it, he partly accepted my decision.
‘You are probably right. There is no point beginning a university degree and failing it for want of concentration. However, a return to Burma is out of the question. The situation there is still chaotic. The nationalists have begun a political war with the British rulers and are impatient for independence. British and Anglo–Burmans, such as yourself, are still at risk from radical nationalists. Dreadful things have been happening.’
I was disappointed, but in my heart I knew that what he said was true, at least for the moment.
‘Besides, your father would never countenance your return to Burma at this time.’
I was sent off to Bombay.
‘When a passage becomes available you will travel by ship to the United Kingdom, where you will be able to link up with your father in due course.’
I knew my father was still working in Abadan but the usual pattern was for expatriates to return to England on furlough every few years. I would catch up with him sooner or later.
Bombay was less crowded than my beloved Calcutta but it did not have the same appeal.
I was met at the station by a Mr McNeil, another good friend of my father’s from Burma days. He was the chief of Thomas Cook and was the person who had directed and financed all my travel in India, although I had never known this. Nor had I realised there had been any personal connection with my family.
Mr McNeil was a jovial fellow with a fondness for children. For the first time, so far as I knew, I had met a family friend who was not bound to a church.
He booked me into the Grand Hotel, on the harbour side of Bombay. The area around the dockside had been destroyed a couple of years earlier. The docks had been cluttered with ships carrying all manner of cargo bound for the war zone. A fire had started in the hold of an American freighter loaded with bombs and ammunition and the ship had blown up. Many other cargo ships had also caught on fire and exploded.
Witnesses had described the chain reaction as the worst disaster they had ever seen. More damage had been done to ships and the docks than any enemy planes could have possibly done. Thousands of Indian labourers died and one cargo of gold bullion was blown away. Days later, gold bars were turning up for miles around. The authorities issued a warning that anybody found in possession of a missing bar would be sentenced to death – a harsh penalty, but this was war-time and lives came cheap.
So here I was. The train trip from Madras had been slow and tedious, with many changes. Bombay was cleaner than Calcutta and the people appeared better off. However, there was a blandness about the place. I liked its amenities but missed the excitement and colour of the city on the opposite side of the continent.
I asked one of the hotel staff what would be a good way to spend a day. ‘Perhaps you would like to take a ferry ride to the Elephanta Caves across the water. You would have a close-up view of the wrecks destroyed during the disaster.’ I thought that was a good idea, so off I went.
It was an eerie ride, skirting close to the rusting, burnt-out wrecks that had been towed out to this graveyard. But it was also exciting to see the results of one of the war’s greatest disasters.
The Elephanta Caves formed part of a Hindu temple, once guarded by tigers chained to large pillars. The tigers were long gone, and in their place monkeys had taken up residence. The brazen beasts would snatch anything, given half a chance.
One day I went to see Mr McNeil.
‘Would it be possible, please, to move to a smaller hotel?’ ‘Why, certainly, Colin, if you wish. What is the problem with the Grand?’
‘Nothing at all,’ I said hastily. ‘It’s just that it’s very formal and I would like to be in the middle of the city.’
The Grand Hotel was old-fashioned and strictly regulated and was located in the dull business district. I moved to a guesthouse nearer the city centre, where most of the action took place. It was a quaint, well-run place. I liked both it and the manager, a Goanese man who was deeply religious. Many of the guests were retired British ladies and their elderly husbands. Others, who came and went, were mostly American servicemen waiting to be s
hipped home.
As I toured the city I was aware of the same unrest I had experienced in Calcutta. The Indians were pushing hard for self-government.
It reminded me of all the unrest in Burma just before the war. Then it had been Burmese nationalists protesting against rich Indian landlords as well as against the British colonialists. There had been some bloodshed, though I had been too young to be really aware of what was going on.
As I became acquainted with Bombay, I grew to like it more. The slower pace suited me after the madness of my last visit to Calcutta. My host directed me to the must-see places and the famous Taj Mahal Hotel was one of my favourite haunts. I loved the Indian curries served for tiffin. Across the road was one of India’s famous landmarks, the Gateway. It was a huge concrete structure facing the Arabian Sea, a famous meeting place for young lovers and the elderly upper class, who strolled along the embankment.
One infamous spot I visited was the red light district of Bombay, the notorious Grant Road. It was not difficult to find; everybody knew where it was. Here the prostitutes of the city hung out. The seamy street ran for a couple of hundred yards and the dilapidated buildings housed the women in cages all along the way. On that day a lot of servicemen were haggling with the women who displayed their bodies from behind the bars. As I walked along, I wondered what lay behind the bars fronting the street. Perhaps, I thought, it was like something straight out of the Arabian Nights, where the Sultans kept their women. I never did find out.
The cricket season was in full swing and not far from the guesthouse stood the famous Brabourne Stadium, a first-class cricket oval where the game was played every weekend. I enjoyed watching some of the visiting service teams play.
On one of my first trips to the beach at Juhu, some miles from the city, I met an English WAAF officer who, like me, loved the sand and sea. She was good-looking and very friendly.
‘I’m waiting to catch a ship home too,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we link up and go sightseeing together?’
‘I’d love to. Shall we meet at my guesthouse? It’s very central.’ ‘All right. Ten o’clock tomorrow.’
So for the following few days we went sightseeing together.
Despite the difference in our ages we got along well. She was like a big sister to me and said, ‘It’s lovely to have you around, Colin, especially since your presence deters other men from harassing me!’
Then one day she called at the guesthouse unexpectedly. ‘Would you like to come for a walk to the coffee house?’
Along the way she called over a street photographer. ‘Here, take a photograph of the two of us together!’
As we sat in the coffee house she said, ‘Well, Colin, I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I received the news last night.’
She gave me her family address somewhere in Suffolk and we said our goodbyes over a cup of coffee. She thanked me for a marvellous time and said, ‘Colin, you will have many friends to see you through life. You’re that type.’ I felt good.
Back at the guesthouse, I shared a table for high tea with an Indian lady and her daughter. The mother was dressed in her native costume, and obviously belonged to the upper class of Bombay citizenry. She was immaculately attired and stunningly groomed. The Goanese manager introduced me, as was customary.
She was the wife of an executive of the Bombay Tramway Company, of Parsee stock, and she and her daughter were celebrating the end of the girl’s schooling.
‘We are awaiting news of my daughter’s entrance to a university,’ the mother explained.
I told them of my family background and the reason for my presence in Bombay.
‘I can’t believe you’re Burmese,’ the lady said. ‘You don’t look like it.’
‘But I am, truly I am. My mother was Daw Ni and I was raised in Maymyo.’
I still had to convince her of my nationality. She was well educated and her knowledge of Burma was extensive. So I mentioned the names of some Parsee friends in Burma who had held positions in the commercial sector, and she was then convinced.
Before we had finished high tea, I had learnt a lot about the Parsees and their migration into India and further on into Burma. They had originated in Persia (Iran), hence their fairer complexion.
‘Many chose their names in their new countries from their occupations. Hence, Merchants, Contractors, Engineers etc,’ the lady told me.
We got along famously and they invited me to their home just up the road. Colaba Causeway was so named because it stretches out into the Arabian Sea. It was a busy end of the city, occupied mostly by merchants running export and import businesses.
The family lived in a unit in one of the better buildings and to my surprise it was furnished like a European home. I became a frequent visitor and the daughter and I became close friends. Her parents trusted her to go out with me whenever she pleased. She was very attractive, with long black hair and hazel eyes. She could quite easily be mistaken for a European. Her teeth too were unblemished.
Bombay thronged with troops awaiting embarkation for the trip home. The guesthouse filled with officers. Among a group of American servicemen and women was an officer from Ann Arbor in Michigan. His name was Paul Tomkin and he was a musical director who had been touring the Eastern front with the US Army. He and a well-known Hollywood actor, Melvyn Douglas, shared my table.
‘What’s a young fellow like you doing here, travelling alone?’ they asked and were astounded to hear a brief summary of my life so far.
‘You’re welcome to come along with us, son. We want to make the most of our time in Bombay.’
So they included me in their tours of the city. I took along my Parsee friend. Paul was a talented pianist and, wherever there was a piano in a restaurant, he could not resist playing it. He had been in Hollywood before the war and had directed many musicals. One of them was playing in Bombay. It was titled Anchors Away. The four of us booked in to see it one night.
My Parsee friend was beside herself and could not get home quickly enough to tell her parents.
‘You’ll never guess where Colin and I are going tonight!’ she told her mother in excitement.
The two Americans were addicted coffee drinkers and delighted in the famous coffee houses of Bombay.
When the time came to catch their transport home, they both gave me their addresses and said, ‘Be sure to call on us if you ever visit the States.’
One day, soon after Christmas, I received a message to call Thomas Cook. I knew what to expect – a berth on a ship to the UK. My pleasurable stay in Bombay, which had lasted several weeks, was to be abruptly curtailed. I was saddened at the prospect of leaving India for another foreign country. India had become my de facto home. During my years on the sub-continent I had developed an enduring affection for the people. I shall always remember their generosity, no matter what their own circumstances were.
Mr McNeil ushered me into his office, presented me with documents and outlined the plans made for the voyage and my arrival in England.
‘Your plans have been set in motion this time by your father,’ he said.
If he expected me to be pleased, he must have been a little disappointed. I resented being treated as a child once again, but I returned to the guesthouse to prepare to board the ship the next day.
After dinner, I went to say goodbye to my Parsee friends. They appeared happy for me. The mother said, ‘You will be thrilled to meet relatives whom you have never seen, and a whole new life will begin.’
Her words made me recall the old monk in the Buddhist monastery in Maymyo talking about rebirth.
‘A good previous life gives one a better life on rebirth,’ he had said. I began to wonder if I had been let down in my previous life.
My Parsee friends came to see me board the ship, the P&O liner, the Strathmore. It was about 28,000 tons. On board I was introduced to my chaperone. She was an entertainer who had been touring the front lines keeping up the spirits of the Allied troops. I was struck by her delightful smile.
‘I’ll leave you here for now,’ she said. ‘Enjoy the trip and don’t do anything silly! If you need me, you know where to find me.’
She gave me a free hand and I appreciated her consideration. When the ship stopped at the southern end of the Suez Canal she came to find me.
‘Would you like to join our group on an overland drive to see the pyramids and catch the ship at Port Said?’ she asked.
‘I’d love to,’ I said.
I had a lovely time. Everyone in her group was very kind to me.
To this day, I don’t know how or why she became my chaperone.
Voyages can be fun. They can also be boring if you are alone, but when I was not involved in deck sports, I was happy to sit in a deck chair and ponder.
I knew very little about life in England. One certainty was that it would not be as warm as the tropics. I spent hours filling my mind’s screen with the events of the last four years. It had been a life of adventure, of getting to know people and enjoying their cultures and traditions. There had been moments when I had been desperately sad and grief-stricken. Yet the good times had leavened the moments when I slipped into sorrow.
I had a lot of time to think, especially when the ship was sailing up the Mediterranean Sea. The weather was warm and the sea calm, just the way I liked it. Every day took me further away from Burma and I began to accept it, although I was still determined to return one day.
My stay at the hospital in Tinsukia had almost faded from my mind. The improvement in my health when I left the hospital at Digboi, however, was still fresh in my memory. It had probably been the turning point on my road to recovery. Lying back on my deck chair, I thought about the people who had contributed to my convalescence. There were also those who had helped me through my adolescence, particularly the boys and girls who had accepted me as their friend. Above all, there was India, which had embraced me.