1938 May
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
May 3rd 1938
My darling Annette,
It is really fun getting your letters, for its so satisfactory to know that you find life good, as I am sure you do from the way you write. Also (and this sounds very elderly!) when you tell of your doings, I am reminded of myself at eighteen, and it brings to mind all sorts of pleasant and amusing memories. Thank goodness Auntie and I escaped the worst of the chaperone age, though there was nothing like the freedom of movement for young women that there is now. Whether it was permissible for me to go to Brooklands for the day with a young man, was hotly discussed by the family, and the decision that I might, because he was a reliable person was considered rather daring! Consequently the outing took on a sort of extra charm.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
In the place where those stars are, imagine me going down to lunch, where I had a ridiculous conversation with Dad. I said I liked Richard’s description of his sail round Osey Island, and would have enjoyed it. Dad said “I would not have. I don’t mind taking a risk if I am an expert, but I hate to be made to look a fool” “But” said I, “in this case you would not be the expert, but just a passenger” “That would not make any difference” said Dad. “It is just like the agonising feeling that the man reading the lessons is going to make a mistake”. I roared with laughter, and said that I did not wonder that he finds life exhausting if he emotionalises other people’s responsibilities as his own. “What” said he, “you don’t feel like that about the lessons in church? I thought everyone did”. I said I should ask you, for I do not believe his attitude is at all usual. I feel no expectations of mistakes, and if one were made, it would probably make me laugh.
Thank you for fixing up about the rooms in Wales. I am going to bring my breeches and my mountain boots home with me, for they are so much more comfortable for rough mountain walking than ordinary clothes.
Uncle H.D. and Winsome take more pleasure than ever in the news from Highways now that John is there. What a boon it is that he has settled down so well, and it was a grand idea having PIP to stay too. What was your impression of the comparative intelligence of the two boys? I feel my own judgment at fault, for Pip was always ready to talk naturally, and John was always showing off.
Your comments on “The Yank at Oxford” arrived most opportunely when we had just seen it. We too, enjoyed it, but I certainly felt that the standard of dress was much too high. That is nearly always a fault on the films, is’nt it? I wonder whether they will ever have the intelligence to get away from it. What’s the girls name? in “Escape Me Never” is at the moment the only example I can call to mind of a woman looking as if she dressed on the income which she was supposed to have in the play. We watched anxiously for you or Richard to appear at any moment. Have you heard anything about the making of the film in Oxford? Someone told me that a lot of it was acted by undergraduates, and that Robert Taylor was disliked by them, so that in such scenes as the de-bagging they gave him a really rough time. This story sounds to me the sort of thing people like to make up, and not one that bears the stamp of truth.
Funny that you should have mentioned your fears that Auntie May would disapprove of your going to the films on Easter Saturday. I was at the pictures on that day and had the same thought. I suppose the poor old dear has learnt at last that she cannot force her opinions on other people.
There is such a wind blowing in that I have not been using the punkah all day, and I have not had the windows shut. I have to sit with my back to the window for the breeze blows the paper in the machine so violently.
Dont be surprised if I dont write next week. I dont think my packing will be very serious, but I may find that all sorts of jobs crop up at the last minute, and that I have only time for the family newspaper.
Best love
From
Mum
May 3rd, 1938
My darling Rosemary,
Today you are going back to school. I have thought of you often, and wondered what your feelings about it may be. Mine were always a bit mixed, but on the whole it was rather fun going back and seeing everyone., and getting down to work again. I wish my hunger for knowledge had been quite as strong then as it is now. I did like learning. I did have some sort of vision that the world in its history and its workings and its structure is intensely fascinating and varied, but whether I ever got quite as far as realizing that I was a part of it, and that therefore it was all of personal importance to me, I don’t know.
One has got to learn to think, and not just to learn things by heart. One has got to understand that education is to fit one for life, and since it is difficult to know when one is young what that life is going to be, it takes certain subjects, and trains the mind on them, in the hope that this will enable the pupil to take any subject, later in life and master it, or at any rate learn of it enough to enable her to utilize the knowledge for whatever job she may happen to have to deal with. From what I have seen of you I believe you have got a mind something the same pattern as mine. Annette’s I think, is more like Dad’s---very quick, and very ingenious. You and I are much slower, but we are both stickers and I think that what we learn, we make a part of us. I don’t believe I ever exerted myself tremendously at school. I was able to keep up a good average by working steadily, but I don’t think I was ever really wakened up, except, perhaps by a series of lectures on Robert Browning, when I was about sixteen. Had I been aiming for a varsity career, with the knowledge that I had to fit myself for earning my living later on, I wonder whether it would have given me just the little extra push that would have made a lot of difference to my work in my school days. It was Dad and Uncle Harry and Uncle Roy who woke me up intellectually just about the time I left school. It was from them that I learnt to see what a thrilling thing is the world of ideas, rather as some twenty years later I have learnt from Professor Crew and Professor Gates, the fascinations of the world of Science.
I wonder if I convey to you in the least what I mean by all this. It is not that I want you or any child to work much, and play little, but I would like to help you to see behind the sort of curtain of dullness which sometimes seems to be the background to work at school. Occasionally a teacher is so inspired that he or she can carry pupils past that curtain. I hope you will be lucky enough to meet some teacher who can do this for you.
Bless you, and my best love to you
Mother
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
May 5th 1938
My Dears,
We, too, have been suffering from drought, and the peasants have not been able to plough and sow their fields. The hot season in Bengal is usually mitigated by Nor’Westers, but till the night before last, 1938 had brought us none. For several days now there have been magnificent winds, and a great deal of cloud coming from the South. About 4 o’clock on Tuesday, the wind suddenly swung round to the North East, blew back the clouds, and for an hour or so it rained heavily. Before the storm I was sitting on the South verandah and had been watching the country boats, taking advantage of the wind and the tide, which, combined, carried them up the river at a tremendous rate. The first warning I had of the storm was seeing the boatmen suddenly spring into activity, pull down their sails, turn their boats for the shore, and tie them as fast as they could. The rain brought the temperature down with a bump, and it was lovely to feel cool with no fan running. This house is a regular “Castle of the Winds”. The difficulty is that everything that has not considerable weight tends to get blown over.
There had been quite a lot doing since I wrote last week. We had a day in Calcutta on Friday. Herbert had to go to a meeting of the Directors of the East India Railway, so I went in too, to do some shopping and some Himalayan Club work. We lunched with Edward Groth, the American Consul, who is just back from Washington. I asked him some questions about President Roosevelt and about American politics, and it started him talking most interestingly. Herbert, who as a rule is not fond of talking politics, because he finds it depressing, confessed that he enjoyed this. Luckily I had nothing urgent to do after lunch, and I was able to go with Edward Groth to Kodak’s to see some cine films he had taken on some of his recent extensive travels. His great hobby is photography and he takes both still and moving pictures as well as a professional. The films that interested me most were ones of the Nagas and the Mishmis, Head-Hunting tribes of the North of Assam, for I have heard so much about them from Ron and from Frank Kingdon Ward. Herbert had gone off to see various people in the Secretariate, but we met again and were joined by one or two friends for tea at the Club, before meeting Harry and Winsome and going to see “The Yank at Oxford” at 6 o’clock. We enjoyed the film and thought it sufficiently well-produced to carry off its obvious absurdities. Harry and Winsome gave us dinner, and we got home again about 11 o’clock. Herbert had been so bored all the week that I was very glad for him to get even the small change of going in to Calcutta.
The tremendous time the Contractor took over the repairs to the drawing-room, delayed me sadly in my duty of giving a “Station Dinner-party”. This function eventually took place on Saturday night. I had all the British station officials, and the Administrator and his wife and the Doctor and his wife:- - our French neighbours from Chandanagore. We only totalled twelve in all, so much has the British cadre of the services shrunk of late years. Considering that in these local parties one cannot choose ones guests for any similarity of tastes or powers of conversation, the function did not go too badly. The only complete dud was Mrs Mackenzie, the wife of the D.I.G. of police, who does not even make an effort to talk. Mr Hartley and I were wondering the next day, whether she simply has nothing in her head, or whether she is intensely shy. I think it is lack of grey matter that she suffers from. After dinner we did a thing which I never like. We played a game. True, it was Herbert’s race game, which is better than most, for it does require a certain amount of intelligent attention, and it does provide some excitement. Our guest appeared to be reasonably happy and amused. I hope they did not find it too dull.
I was in Calcutta again yesterday. I had to go down partly on Himalayan Club business, to arrange about a stove to be sent up to Sikkim for our new hut, - - and partly to get a hair-cut etc. Incidentally I wanted to have lunch with Milly Chaudhuri, and to see Percy Brown and Idris Matthews. I had a very late tea with P.B., and we laughed a great deal, as we always do, I dont now remember what at, but he has a knack of coming across absurdities and making a good tale about them afterwards. Idris is very thrilled because our friends the squirrels have become so very tame. He has special dishes of monkey nuts and of raisens on the breakfast table now, for them, and he says that they eat the inside of the raisens and then neatly spit out the skin. Added to the original George and to Mouldy Tail, there is a Fat Female, who is a regular attendent, and Idris has great hopes that she is going to produce a family, and will eventually bring them along too. It was already dark when I got out to Cossipore so I could not give much advice about the garden, which is supposed to be one of my duties, but we sat on the verandah, and drank gimlets and discussed life, (Including all the garden animals). The cook gave us a splendid dinner, and was waiting in the hall afterwards to get my approval of it, and soon afterwards I left for home, having resisted Idris’ idea that we should go back into Calcutta to a cinema.
We get a four at tennis during the week-ends when Miss Mackenzie is up here, but during the week often we dont, for the doctor is out so much. Mr Stein and I played singles on Monday, which was a singularly humid day, and by the end of three seyts, the sweat was simply running off us in streams, so we took a drink standing, and went straight home to bath. It was the sort of tennis in which one felt that one had got ones exercise in a satisfactorily short space of time.
I’m afraid I am writing badly to-day. I think I have got a slight sense of rush hanging over me. It so happens that I have three or four longish letters for the Himalayan Club that should go off to-day, as well as one or two more for the English mail.
My train arrives at Victoria at 5.20 p m in May 26th. Presumably that means 4.20 English Summer time. I find it hard to realize that I shall see you all so soon. I am terribly sorry that I am missing Ron by such a short margin. His boat arrives in Bombay two days after mine leaves.
Best love to all of you
LJT
From HPV to Annette
Chinsura,
Bengal.
May 5th. 1938.
My dear Annette
I am typing this because I feel that I have not the energy this week to write four separate letters. Yet there is no real excuse for feeling slack, because there was rain yesterday and we had a cool night; it was down to 80. We have had a dispute about weariness for having mentioned that of course everyone feels distressed when any friend is reading the lessons in church ( lest he should make some mistake) I was told that this was nonsense and that the normal person has no emotion on such occasions except a mild amusement; however I know that I am right for I have seen a reference to it in a book. My amusements this week have been more varied than usual. I have ministered so faithfully to the bourgainvillia bushes that there is now very little left of them; and the thorn-gashes on my hands have mostly healed. . I took a golf club and some balls out into the compound one evening to see if any of my never great skill remained to me and found that it did not; and there is no reason why it should, seeing that I haven’t played for eight years. This evening I played tennis if it may be called such; at least I made myself very hot and by unusual good luck my wrist gave me no trouble. On Friday I went into Calcutta for a meeting of the East Indian Railway Advisory Committee of which I am a member: we had lunch with Mr. Groth the American Consul who looked very thin after his trip to the States and talked in an interesting way about American politics as he sees them, which is not quite as other Americans do whom we meet. That afternoon I spent arguing with the Chief Engineer Irrigation Department, now a Bengali; he like the last one cannot see the inevitable consequences of things and he has played into the hands of the politicians who wish to avoid doing anything; and I much fear that all is lost as far as my doings are concerned. Incidentally the new Secretary in that Department is convinced that after all malaria is not bad and the soil has not deteriorated in the districts where the first of my schemes were to be carried through: it may be true, but if so it is a pity that someone does not tell the people so that they may realize how silly it is for them to go on dying of malaria and getting bad crops; but the importance of his belief from my point of view is that it yet another obstacle in the way of getting anything done. In the evening after giving tea to a Bengali lady whose views on the future of Bengal under these reforms ought to be heard by our mushy-minded English politicians we were taken to see a Yank at Oxford by Harry and Winsome and got a lot of mixed amusement out of it. Then dinner with them, followed by the tedious drive back here. On Saturday we gave a dinner to most of the people in this station (omitting only the Indian officials) and to two of the French from Chandernagore and their wives; it was a labour trying to talk French and English mixed or alternately rather as was necessary because the wife of the D.I.G. of police would not attempt French at all----or for that matter English, for I couldn’t get anything out of her at dinner in spite of heroic efforts. Afterwards we played the race game which went rather well because there was much incident, with horses getting shut in and unable to get out of the ruck; but it is a tiring thing running that game among people who do not know it. On Saturday I have to distribute awards to local dignitaries and to make a speech or pronouncement---and inspiration is wanting.
Much love
Dad.
From HPV to Rosemary
Chinsura, Bengal
May 5th, 1938
My Dear Rosemary,
I am typing this because I feel that I have not the energy this week to write four separate letters. Yet there is no real excuse for feeling slack, because there was rain yesterday and we had a cool night; it was down to 80. We have had a dispute about weariness, for having mentioned that of course everyone feels distressed when any friend is reading the lessons in church (lest he should make some mistake) I was told that this was nonsense and that the normal person has no emotion on such occasions except a mild amusement. However, I know that I am right for I have seen a reference to it in a book.
My amusements this week have been more varied than usual. I have ministered so faithfully to the bougainvillea bushes that there is now very little left of them; and the thorn-gashes on my hands have mostly healed. I took a golf club and some balls out into the compound one evening to see if any of my never great skill remained to me and found that it did not; and there is no reason why it should, seeing that I haven’t played for eight years. This evening I played tennis, if it may be called such; at least I made myself very hot and by unusual good luck, my wrist gave me no trouble.
On Friday I went into Calcutta for a meeting of the East Indian Railway Advisory Committee of which I am a member; we had lunch with Mr. Groth, the American Consul who looked very thin after his trip to the States. He talked in an interesting way about American politics as he sees them, which is not quite as other Americans who we meet. That afternoon I spent going with the Chief Engineer Irrigation Department, now a Bengali; he, like the last one, cannot see the inevitable consequences of things and he has played into the hands of the politicians who wish to avoid doing anything; and I much fear that all is lost as far as my doings are concerned. Incidentally the new Secretary in that Department is convinced that after all malaria is not bad and the soil has not deteriorated in the districts where the first of my irrigation schemes were to be carried through. It may be true, but if so it is a pity that someone does not tell the people so that they may realize how silly it is for them to go on dying of malaria and getting bad crops. The importance of his belief from my point of view is that it is yet another obstacle in the way of getting anything done.
On Saturday we gave a dinner to most of the people in this station (omitting only the Indian officials) and to two of the French from Chandernagore and their wives. It was a labour trying to talk French and English mixed or alternately rather as was necessary because the wife of the DIG of police would not attempt French at all----or for that matter English, for I couldn’t get anything out of her at dinner in spite of heroic efforts. Next Saturday I have to distribute awards to local dignitaries and to make a speech or pronouncement---and inspiration is utterly lacking.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
Chinsurah
Bengal
May 9th 1938
My darling Annette
I am just waiting for the post to come in before starting off for my last day in Calcutta, so I seize the opportunity to write you a brief letter – Yours came yesterday – and thank you for it –
Last week I forgot to ask you whether you would rather I came down by the 12.30 arriving Oxford 2.2 or by the 4.45 arriving 5-55 on the 27th. Probably the early one would be better, as I think it is in the early afternoon that you are free.
Probably I could slip up to see Rosemary for a few minutes in the evening –
Would you send Aunt a card to let her know which train you would like me by as I have asked her to ask Uncle Bous to give me lunch in town, should you choose the late one. I’d rather come by the early one really – and don’t know why I did not decide on it straight away. I don’t want to be a nuisence to you and Richard and I don’t want you to feel that you must put off other engagements on my account –
Several people have told me what a remarkable thing the National Union of Students is – Margaret Ogle did that trip in Persia under their auspices and Mr. Hartley – our collector here, tells me that he always goes climbing in Austria, all arrangements being made by the N.US – and he finds most economical and most satisfactory.
Is’nt it lucky that Mothers now-a-days don’t have to be constantly worring about the “sort of people” their daughters are going to meet. It was one of the great pre-occupations of Victorian mamas. I can imagine my mothers startled surprise and alarm if I have announced that I proposed going off on the Continent with a party a strange foreign students! Personally I regard the possibility of your doing so with the utmost calm and approval – my views being that if, by now, you are not able to look after yourself, its extremely unlikely that anyone else will be able to do it satisfactorily for you.
I don’t a bit mind if the place where you are booking me a room is not high class – I want to be as economical as possible. You’ll let me know its name before I come, wont you?
Best love
Mum
Family letter from LJT
Chinsurah
Bengal
May 11th 1938
My Dears,
This is my last day at home, and since there are a good many “last things” to see to, I shall only have time to write you a short letter, which after all, doesn’t matter, for I shall arrive on the heels of it.
I’ve been busy with the head servants of each department, making all possible arrangements for the house and garden to continue to run smoothly with the minimum attention from Herbert. It is in a way unfortunate that the house repairs are going on, but I have gone through everything in detail both with the local P.W.D. sub-divisional officer, and with the contractor, so I hope they will do things as I want and not bother Herbert unduly.
Some letters which Herbert has been writing to Government have so stirred them up, and disturbed them, that they are calling a meeting of all the Commissioners in Bengal, to meet in Darjeeling on the 6th of June. I am awfully glad that Herbert will get a little change to the Hills, and see a few fresh people, but what is more important is that this reaction to his letter has made him feel that perhaps his work is not all being entirely wasted. Of course he says that it is typical of the Bengali mind to summon a conference instead of immediately doing something.
It has been a marvelously cool week. We have had storms almost every day. The gardens are revived. The people can begin ploughing their fields and the ponds are filling up again. There are prophecies of an early monsoon. What will happen on Everest and on Nanga Parbat if that prophecy comes true? I have been thinking a lot about the Everest people since the storms became so frequent.
Herbert had to preside and I, to give away the prizes at a Bratachari Rally on Sunday. This Bratachari movement in Bengal was started by a Bengali I.C.S. man, and, founded on a revival of Folk Dancing, (which most people say never existed in Bengal) it has taken on many of the ideas of the Boy Scout Movement, rather sentimentalized and emasculated. Young people of both sexes take a long string of vows, some twenty in number, which it seems quite impossible that they will ever begin to try to keep. They become full of enthusiasm, and to begin with do start doing some work for the public good, like clearing a tank of the dreadful water-hyacinth, or attempting mosquito control, to the accompaniment of songs and dances, and with a good deal of advertisement, but one cant help questioning how long any of them go on with work of this sort, and to what extent they take ides of honesty, public spiritedness, hygiene, etc, etc into their homes and their daily life. They have the distressing trait in their characters that they feel when they have talked about a thing enough, they have accomplished just as much as if they had done it. However, perhaps I am being a little bitter and doubting, and I do think that it is of some use, even to talk about good ideas and ideals with young people. A little of it may stick here and there. - - - The Rally went on all day, but Herbert and I arrived at 5 o’clock, and were duly installed on a dais and subsequently garlanded. We watched a display of different troops from schools all over Hoogli district doing dances, acrobatics and so on. Then everybody made laudatory speeches about everyone else, and felt extremely high souled, while all the children and most of the crowd talked and pushed, and made not the slightest attempt to listen. Finally the leaders of the successful troops came up to receive the shields and prizes. I found myself congratulating a small girl, representative of a school whose age not exceeding eleven, had performed the most useful public work by a) assisting to build a road, and b) had carried a corpse to the burning ghat and cremated it. This last act seemed to me astonishing, but scarcely suitable. I wonder whether the little brats enjoyed the business!
Idris came out to tea and dinner on Saturday, and was delighted with this house and garden, and the splendid view we have of the river. He used to sail constantly on this part of the river, when his hobby was sailing and not flying, and he grew almost sentimental about his boat, which is still laid up at the Towers, and wishful to put it in the water and use it again.
On Monday I made my last visit to Calcutta to get my tickets, and to make over the Himalayan Club files to the lad who is acting for me while I am away. Louise Rankin game me lunch, and I spent bit of the afternoon in the Agri-Horticultural gardens with the Secretary, Mr. Lancaster, arranging with him about sending up things for the garden here from time to tie. I changed and dined at Harry and Winsome’s, and afterwards went to see Jessie Matthews in “Sailing Along”, which I thought a poor film, while I think she is now over-acting and has spoilt herself. We came out into a downpour of rain, which made my drive home rather slow, for the streets were slippery, and our wind-screen wiper, not having been used for some time, would not work, but as I slept most of the way it did not much matter to me.
Duty now calls me to attend to various household affairs, and to write one more Himalayan Club letter to the State Engineer in Sikkim. Did I tell you that the building of the second hut in Sikkim, will complete a five-year old dream of mine? It will link up the two great valleys of North Sikkim, via the most wonderful high snow pass, with out the necessity of taking tents. G.B. Gourlay and I fought over this (in the most friendly spirit) for years, before I finally got my way, by convincing the committee that I was right!
Best love to you all
LJT
Family letter from HPV
Chinsurah,
Bengal.
May 12th. 1938.
My dear Annette: (name handwritten)
Behind-hand as usual, owing to my habit of hoping that though tired at the moment I shall not be so next day and postponing letter-writing indefinitely. It is mail-day: quite forgotten is the desire of the Post Office that the public should not continue to write on Thursdays, for the better spreading out of the air-mail demand, but I trust that everyone else has so carefully observed that request that I alone write today. It is more than mail-day; it is the day of your mother’s departure for England. She is going by air-conditioned coach, but the weather is favourable anyhow; there has been rain over the greater part of India, accompanied in the centre by destructive storms, and so it should be cool.
My angry letter to the Revenue Minister about the futility of the Ministry’s methods and the impossibility of getting people to pay their rents to landlords so long as they believe that the Ministry is afraid to compel them has had the unexpected result of getting all the Commissioners and a lot of the Collectors a few days in Darjeeling: the Minister appears to have read it out at a Cabinet meeting (although he asked me to write for his private information) and the agitation which it caused has ended thus: “ended” because if they had meant to do anything they would have done it; calling officers up to discuss means gathering excuses for doing nothing. My speech last Saturday, carefully written so as to occupy no more than 20 minutes, proved too difficult to read with my glasses; I could not read it if I kept it well down so as not to have it in front of my face, and it would have been useless to hold it up and read it out like an essay. So I just spoke instead. The assembled leaders of the people seemed to listen, but I doubt whether it will have any effect; I was telling them that there was not a hope of their getting big schemes for improving the country-side unless they were willing to pay for them -- and that doctrine is too unpopular out here to carry conviction. On Sunday we went to a Bratachari rally --- an imitation Boy-Scout Girl-Guide mixture, modified to suit Bengali tastes. The founder Dutt is the man who took over from me in the Local Self-Government Department, and I had told him years ago that I should throw him down the khud (it was in Darjeeling) if he mentioned the society to me again; so—it was humourous that I should have to go and preside. They capered about and lumbered around; folk-dancing, but without doubt it would do good if the boys and girls concerned did the dances which are sort of physical jerks regularly; but they look as if they did them only for display purposes. I was much pleased with a war dance in which most were narrow chested and several wore glasses. There were of course some, very young, who were quite good.
There has been a lot of rain this week, not before it was needed: it had begun to look as if the crops would not be got into the ground and in some places drinking water was lacking; as a result cholera was spreading. But here at least there has been enough to moisten the top three or four inches of the ground, which is enough to go on with. I have been working hard and doing nothing in the evenings, though I did go across and play tennis one day – but was it this week?
(handwritten addition) The typewriter is a frigid instrument: I cannot get any real emotion out of it. So forgive the infernal dullness of this effort.
Much love
Dad
(In the letters to LJT, HPV’s writing is very difficult to read, so names may be very inaccurate)
From HPV to LJT
Darjeeling Club
Sunday May 12th
I waited for the post to come in before leaving yesterday for Calcutta and it was late. But the roads were clear and we rattled along in fine style. There was time to go to (?)Bucohs for my watch (there had been nothing wrong with it except the hairspring displaced, 30 secs work to put right) and then to get my ticket and reserve my place, before going over to Howrah for the meeting. It didnot take long and I had time to get a haircut before the lunch with Birendra Mukherjie and Harmer at the Bengal Club. Birendu Mukhijee is in a state of nerves. The strike worries him as well it might. But the result was to me somewhat annoying: for he went round and round and gave masses of irrelevant detail: so that the whole thing lasted till nearly 4. I felt tired, for no reason though it had been extremely hot in the car: and instead of looking up Harry and Winsome or telephoning to Matthews as I intended, I merely sat in a chair in the U.S. Club till 7.45 when I had dinner. Harold Graham was on the train: also Mimer. It was a cool night but I slept badly and woke up at five. Incidentally I sat on my spectacles which I had laid down on the bunk and twisted the frame: badly: but they are wearable. At Siliguri there were Ben and Blandy also. I had a good car to come up in: closed but airy: but undoubtedly an open car with hood down, not framing the view, is less trying to one inclined to be sick. Actually I felt very sick half way between Kur??and Ghoom but survived and recovered by the time that we reached here. Messrs Gladding, Wrangham, Llewellyn, Geoffrey Bulevan? John Bottomley on the terrace in front of the club. Kinghganga, Kalm, the tip of little Kalum and the extreme tip of Pandim showed through the clouds at intervals from Ghoom into Darjeeling: very fine to see. It had been very cloudy up to Muhanaddi, then patches of blue with occasional thick mist: and from Ghoom onwards sunny. They have taken away the band stand from the churanti. Costello was here also. After sitting for a bit, I had a second breakfast where I met him. We had five or six people there and having greeted a new group on the quarterdeck, the Long Thompsons, Roxburghs, Nelsons with Audrey, Mrs Wrangham, Martyn – and some more; Steel Perkins from Calcutta, for instance; after this which took some time I went out with Ben to write names at Government House. He insisted in going up to the Gymkhana Club where spying Mollie Lutyens in the Ladies Room he entered. There was a procession of monks wandering round Darjeeling: they had refreshments below the Club before we set out: all sorts of things put out on tables: bread and milk out of kettles to all the boot carriers: the Abbot sprinkling rice and blessing people. All gay. The procession came past the Gymkhana Club while we (rest of letter missing)
From HPV to family No 1
Chinsura,
Bengal.
May 13th 1938
It is clear that now I am alone here it will be necessary to write a little every night (or thereabouts) if the family members are to have anything like as vivid an account of the local doings as they are accustomed to receive each week. Necessary or not, I do not say that it will be done: but today is auspicious for making a start anyhow. In primis, it has been extraordinarily cool; I did not have the fan going for quite a time this afternoon: and in addition it has been a holiday, which means that I have been able to work quietly all day without interruption, or rather with only two interruptions – an old gentleman who had an appointment with me and who came 100 miles to ask for a nomination to a municipal council and a youth whom I had never seen or hears of and who expected to get from me a certificate to say that he deserved a Government job. In consequence, though I worked stadily from 9 till 4.30 with half an hour off for lunch I was not exhausted as on most days. Needless to say I spent most of the day snootling – working out a set of questions which might be put to cultivators about the outturn of paddy, for though my schemes have really gone up in smoke I do not intend to cease pushing them if only because my doing so will make things embarrassing for those beloved Ministers. I do believe that they are getting a little tired of the fact that my keen desire to assist them leads me invariably to produce the most offensive of comments on their behaviour, policy, gutlessness and lack of sense. If they did not know that I did it for the highest motives they would be peeved. I have just scraped out of my hair where it had dug itself well in some form of small and repulsive insect. Which reminds me that my wife’s departure has been the occasion for the arrival of three baby lizards, one on the stairs, one in the drawing room and one in the bedroom – though it is true I saw this last three days ago as well. The united strength of the outdoor staff with the help of bamboos managed to twist the bougainvilla (?how spelt?) back on the top of the newly erected pillars, and made quite a good job of it. My hackings now seem to have been on the moderate side: there is a horrid huddle of branches in the middle of the frame but it may straighten out. I cut away a lot of the bougainvilla over the kitchen (if it is the kitchen) but underorders left a lot more which it would have pleased me to have cut. Anyhow I did enough to make myself in a muck sweat; and before I started I organised a white ant hunt near the dhobi-tank, having found a shrub with its roots completely eaten away by them; I confess that I was searching round to see if I could saw bits off it. but we could not find anything that looked like a nest of the beasts; I thought that it might be merely the beginnings of a settlement and that they had not got much more than the root itself to live in but the domestics outed upon the idea. I should have said that there was a storm of wind this afternoon followed by heavy rain; this time the chaprassi got the chicks on the verandah down in time to keep the rain out and the chairs and cushions escaped damage. Dinner last night at Harry’s; I wish them luck at this very moment for they have a dinner of dull ones, the Edgeleys and the Hon Mr Justice Costello Kt, plus a (dull) youth from the firm: but two volunteers Mrs Sukie Stewart (Stuart?) and the nice looking woman who was seeing her husband off by the Bombay Mail at Howrah and to whom Harry spoke. Both these asked the H.D.s to dinner and movies afterwards and hearing them to be engaged decided to gate-crash; and the whole lot are to be taken to the movies afterwards (they must just have arrived there) because there is a limit to the amount of High Court Juges’ talk that anyone except me can stomach at a time. “That’s enough about elephants”.
Saturday. May 14th.
Last night before dinner I played over two of the French Linguaphone records – the travel series; M. Bourgeois has the most monotonous of accents and there is nothing sympathetic in his personality; I plough through the records only because I suffer from a fierce determination to get my moneys worth. After dinner I played on the typewriter. Tonight my programme has been the same; except that after going through the two records six times I started going through a lot of the early ones, which at one time but not now I had by heart. And except that suddenly I perceived that my watch for the mending of which the huge sum of Rs. 14 has just been expended had suddenly stopped; and it will not start again; without cause unless it dislikes French records, and most annoying. A cool night; the second running on which I haven’t had the fan on. For that matter a cool day too. Amazing weather. Lots of cloud and again today in the afternoon a fierce squall. No chaprassi handy; to one I gave leave because his wife was sick with flu, and the second on duty had gone with papers to the office; so I went up myself to rescue the chairs and cushions on the verandah. It was necessary to shut and bar the French windows, and so strong was the wind and so slippery is the floor that I couldn’t manage it. As soon as I got the windows almost shut the wind pushed me back a couple of feet, so that in the end I had to take off my shoes and do the job in socks. Another long day’s work; a little too much of it. And to get rid of the stupidity resulting from it I went over to make up a singles at tennis with Mr Stein – and then the doctor came along. I played two sets; and lost both; but I always lose at tennis these days. This morning an officer from Calcutta turned up to consult with me. A Bengali. I had him up into the drawing room because he is of rank; and behold! someone had emptied the silver cigarette box. It had quite a number of cigarettes in it on Wednesday night when Mr Stein was here – and clearly there has been villainy. After my visitor had gone I harangued the household in anger, saying that none but the humble Islam or the sweeper could have had access to the cigarettes and also been capable of such a thing, and that beyond doubt I should sack them both if it happened again. But five minutes later it occurred to me that the chaprassi also had had access to them because he came up here to shut windows when I went off to bed; and I had to announce that my logic was at fault. After that I said things to the chaprassis. And though my position is now weak I hope that I have created a general impression of danger. One cigarette or two I should not take to heart but as I explained it was a shameful thing to have happened when a visitor was here.
Today there came a letter to say that I must go (in knee breeches and such) to the government House show at Darjeeling on the King’s birthday; which means staying up a day longer, if not two; any how I shall be there from Sunday morning to Friday afternoon unless I have got my dates mixed, as is possible. So there is something to be said for writing offensive letters.
The event of the day was a loud screeching in the dining room, next door to my office where I was working. The chaprassi to whom I called for the explanation said that a parrot had come in, and I went to see this portent. But it was a hen which had fled from the cook and which had left clumps of feathers on the ground where would-be capturers had grasped at it; I felt sure that it was my dinner and reared that I should not relish it when it came: but that was all right because the dinner was mutton, and the hen was merely demonstrating its agility and general folly.
A lovely evening. Bright moon. Almost clear sky. Reflections of the moon and of electric lights from mills in the river. Just sufficient breeze to ripple the water and give suitable effects. I have been sitting without a fan since dinner but now it has turned hot or hottish.
The mistris have cut away two inches deep of plaster off the walls of the house outside the office room and have revealed the old fashioned bricks, which look more like thick tiles than brick. Relic of my Land Acquisition days is the memory (which may be wrong) that these bricks ceased to be used after 1780, when thick and fat bricks came in for forty years before they were superseded by the English size.
Sunday. May 15th 1938.
Decidedly I am not clever at managing carbon papers. Last night was not a good night; just too hot to be comfortable without a fan, and on the chilly side with one. Woke several times after being a long time in getting to sleep at all. However it was a cool morning and I woke frehs. Doing my exercises was a decidedly sweaty business, though. After breakfast I prowled round the premises looking sor smells and found one. A drain blocked up in a most inaccessible corner behind two large buttresses and under stone stairs to the roof of the kitche. The sweeper who is not responsible for that particular bit was coerced into routing it out and routing it out though it smelt to bilges, - which is a quotation not too accurate and not too applicable either, for the smell was not so bad. Then I read the paper, sitting in a breeze in the drawing room without a fan on; and after that I settled down to doing the income tax return which has been lying on my table and weighing on my conscience for a month. Then I dealt with the mail, official and private, - a letter from Rosemary which mentioned that she had sent one to Aden: alas! FOR THE SHIP does not stop there. The capitals are accidental. Then being free to amuse myself, what did I do but start writing a note, which ended by running to ten pages, of criticism of Martin’s Bill for the restoration of irrigation tanks in Bengal: when I started digging into it, old instincts revived and I could not resist pulling bits of it to pieces – the most important bits. That lasted me to lunch time; immediately after which there came in the proprietor of ‘Shaw Babu’? to protest about the aspersions cast by us upon his good name, in a letter which ticked him off for monkeying with prices: I let him talk, and afterwards he said all that he felt about Gandhi and his crowd, which was a considerable amount as may be guessed when I mention that he keeps a wine and spirits shop and Gandhi is all for prohibition. When he had gone I returned to my criticisms of Martin (and indeed he has a fluffy and inaccurate mind) and thereafter lay down for an hour. At 5.30 I went to give away prizes to Boy Scouts; and found that it was all mixed up with a sort of Social Club and Music Society; the Boy Scouts affair lasted half an hour including ten minutes for a photo, and the club part over an hour and a half, including tea at the end which started after 7.00. All much enjoyed by a numerous and soulful party – and really there was a very good show. Apart from gymnastics such as we saw at the Bratachari gathering (and by many of the same boys) but more difficult because it was all indoors and the boy on top of the pyramid had to choose being pushing his head into a cut glass chandelier and having it taken off by an electric fan, for the band and the spectators took up all the available room, there was the band, good, and a girl who played on the zitar (if that is how it is spelt – a very soft and rather soothing stringed instrument, the body of which is a pumpkin) and who sang; an ugly girl with amazing slender hands and clever at what she did. Then there was a man who played the same instrument – the same kind, I mean; actually his was twice the size of the girl’s – and he was worth listening to anywhere; there was a drummer with him, most soothing too. In fact the general effect of the entertainment was to send me sleep almost. Then I had to make a speech; rather good but not soothing, because I damned all Bengal in heaps for being clever-clever diseased and flabby, all things which they could avoid as indeed the boy Scouts and the members of the Club were clearly avoiding them. Great satisfaction because they knew that I was right and that they were better than most. And so home, too late for a bath, after stopping to speak to the Collector at his house.
May be good will come of it. One of the men who opposed my Development Act in Council in 1935 asked if he might come in and discuss what I said last week in my speech because he was sure that the scheme was necessary.
Monday, May 16th, 1938
Tonight I am tired. It rained just as I stopped work, and continued raining hard all evening; and for want of anything else to do I went back to work. The Ananda Bazar Patrika, a paper written in Bengali, with a bigger circulation than the Statesman even, has come out with a two column leader full of abuse of me and misrepresenting the contents of the speech that I made to the Union Board people ten days ago. It is a nuisance that I am not free to write as I please to them – not that they’d print it, - for the ability of a Bengali to be nasty in a dispute is not great, though he tries hard enough. Of course if I wrote a reply, it would be translated by one of my officers for me. Strange how annoyed I become when the papers write lies about my schemes; it is probably annoyance at the futility; they spend their time lamenting that nothing is done for the country and when anyone starts in doing something they resent it and begin to snap. The row between the driver and the cook which was brought before my wife just before she started off for home revived today; the cook complains that though he is supposed to be allowed to leave his things in the godown where the driver lives it is often locked agains him: the bearer says that all the trouble is because the cook’s son with others goes to Chandernagore to drink, that he was arrested and fined for being disorderly, that (apparently, but I may have got this wrong) to raise money he sold certain ornaments including a gold watch for Rs. 2/8 to the driver, and now that the son has gone to Darjeeling with some Sahib the cook is asking for the watch back, hinting that the driver stole it and making trouble. There is also something about ‘those people’ playing in the drivers godown –playing what? cards? gambling maybe, but probably here the bearer is hoping to get back at Mogul. One can believe nothing that the bearer says but there may be something in this confused tale of drink and selling watches. It is sad that just when the cistern thing in the flower bed to catch the water going down the gutter from the baths and the dhobi’s tank is finished there should be so much rain that it is not used. The ground is soaking wet today and the gutter running a foot deep. The workmen spent the day tearing down plaster on the verandah outside my room but I remained benevolent and paid no heed to them; but the extra concentration needed for working against the noise may be why I am tired.
Tuesday May 17th. 1938
This evening might be an evening in the middle of the rains; not so much on account of the stickiness but because the insects have come swarming in, moths beetles flying ants of every sort red worms (centipede-like) and above all those repulsive greenish things about five inches long like scorpions which in Barisal we used to call flying lobsters. I have closed all the windows and have flitted furiously; the poor beasts.
Last night was the sort of night that seems to last for weeks; I woke up at least a dozen times, and each time felt as if I had slept for hours since the last time of waking. Not too brisk this morning. It was sticky but not hot-weather-hot. Everything looks fresh and delightful after the rain. And the river this evening when night fell was the most charming blue precisely the same shade as the sky with great white clouds mirrored in it; decidedly in such matters we Bengalis can give the other provinces points. By the way there is merit in a floor so slippery that one stands with difficulty on it, for the flying lobster which fell on it couldn’t manage a take-off and merely skidded futile-like across the floor. The workmen had moved round to the outside of the dining room today; the walls look most alarming without the plaster on them; great cracks running up the whole height of the house under both the south and the east verandahs. But I suppose most houses are like that under the plaster in India and I know from my L.A. Collector days already quoted how difficult it is to make a decrepit old house to fall. The malis have cut down and rooted out the old oleander bush today; also planted tufts of dhub grass on the bald patches on the lawn where white-ant nests have been eradicated, bedded out the zinnias and started on the humus-pit. The top nine inches of ground are now quite soft but below that it is like brick. While I was engaged on supervising this agreeable pastime, the new judge came in to call; but luckily he was doing the round of the station and did not stop for more than a few minutes during which I talked of humus so heartily that I doubt if he will ever come near me again. Did I say that yesterday I opened the old tin of printers ink bought at Worcester for the Race Game original course, and printed the word Black on a dozen of the blank playing cards that Harry bought specially for his Race Game set and which I have never had the energy to tackle? It was not energy that made me tackle them yesterday either. It is difficult to get a nice even black when printing ink is applied to the type with a piece of cotton padded with cotton wool; but it is a marvel that the old ink is still moist at all. I am sweating even under the fan with the windows shut. By the way the other evening when I had written that it was so nice and cool, I happened to notice as I was going to bed that the temperature in the sitting room was just over ninety. I shall get under the net now – i.e. start going to bed, partly to get away from the insects and partly for the sake of having open windows. Maybe also I have eaten too much dinner.
May 18th
I slept without a pyjama jacket last night, with the fan on. And slept better. This has caused cold-sores on my upper lip. After breakfast I took the cook’s account; written in English by some boy who knows none. He was extremely stupid over it all and it took over twenty minutes to find out what was really meant. All this time as I found when I came out of the dining room there was a Bengali gentleman waiting to see me; they had been afraid to send his card in, curse them; he had an appointment and anyhow I hate to keep people waiting. The cook asked that the matter of the godown should be pursued no further; but I called up the driver, who says that he did on one occasion by negligence use during the day the lock which he has of his own – to keep out strangers to whom the cook gives permission to come in and sleep there during the night. He added (but I refused to listen) that apart from the cook’s son being locked up for drunkenness the cook himself was arrested some 12 or 14 days ago for blocking a road with his bicycle and when told by the police to shift it refusing on the ground that he was the Commissioner’s cook. Such adventures go on all around us and we all innocent of the! I have to send the driver in to Calcutta tomorrow to fetch kerosene because after all their assurances the local agent can provide first quality only if given ten days notice – or maybe they mean that they get supplies only every ten days.
The white ant nest furthest south into which experimentally we put less of the dope has in part survived and extensive runs have appeared; this nest when opened up had amazingly big galleries and chambers. We put into it the remains of the tin but it will not prove enough to do the trick. Alas. The new cistern in the flower bed has caught two virtuous salamanders and a shrew-mouse thing. They floated on it belly-upmost, quite dead, and the water smelt most horrid. I gave orders that a bamboo be put into the cistern leaning against the edge so that trapped beasts might climb out; but I didn’t verify whether this was done before I came in. Half the humus pit is finished. I looked at the humus heap this evening; it is still quite hot after all these days and looks like good stuff. The river wall turns out to be in a dangerous state; the foundation undercut by last year’s floods. So said an explanation to an estimate that I had to sign. So I went to look for myself today, and it is so. The brick work hangs unsupported. And what is more there is a big snake-skin lying inside the cavity; what is more again there is a foul stink down on the bank. I have renounced it, but being able to find the cause; if this were Cossipore I should make a formal present of it to Mr. Matthews.
This concludes the programme for this week.
From HPV to LJT
Chinsura
May 15th
Note added at top of letter Mr Rowntree has returned your Binon La papers. He cannot do the trip this year.
My dearest
I felt gloomy for a moment as the train moved off, but not for long being plunged by Harry into talk. A pleasant little dinner and a not too cool journey back – not too smelly either. – It seemed better to hammer out a circular letter which I enclose. But not knowing to whom one is writing is a soul destroying business.
“Shaw Bula”’s letter enclosed. He produced produced bills and catalogues to show that the Magda figures quoted by you are less than those in Magda’s catalogue, and that they charge more to people in the ??? – which may be true, because Davids did. As to the commission I should not be surprised if it was true that there was a misunderstanding, though, as I told him, if there was such it was his fault.
One reason why I seem not to tire so quickly when alone is that there is no one to show me up as bad tempered. And the holiday on Friday was a boon. – I do believe that there may be something moving, about the Hooghly scheme. The opponent of the Development Act, whom I mention in the Circular, is the richest and biggest landowner – and when he says that he intends to start agitating for the scheme it may lead to much. Anyhow he may get a lot of non officials on the rampage which is a lot more effective than having the Government people going round and talking.
I enclose a letter from Lady Fermor to you, which I opened because I thought it might be Himalayan Club: and its enclosure. A letter from Peter Lombard today which says that she had been very ill and next expected to putt through: better now but stiff in all her joints and wondering whether the hot weather will lissom her out at all. I feel rather sad about it.
Yesterday among old confidential letters I turned up on from Carke saying what he thought of Dull, with an endorsement by Prentice “A miracle of fairness” – he clearly felt it a miracle that anyone should be other than violently prejudiced against him. Also letters by Peter on this and that (Waddell) – not too good. – The Clearkes have left for Mymensingh. I wrote and thanked him for the good work he had done: it may buck him up a bit.
Much love my darling – and look after yourself
Your
Toto
Handwritten letter from HPV to Annette
Chinsura
May 18th 1938
My dear Annette
Admire my industry in tapping out a circular letter of such length. Compare it if you will to a marshmallow: all wind and lacking in taste (which might be said also of a bellyache): but a proof of zeal. Look you: as I was at a college which said “Damn Balliol” as grace before meals I do not have to ask why they give their ball half price. But it was not Balliol which Kipling described as a God forsaken nigger Manchester: though a debating society might take “why not?” as its theme. Maybe. – As for me, never did I get up and listen to carols on tower tops: it is the American coming out in you. But, still, let me not quench enthusiasm even retrospectively.
I have been reading “Tu viens En Angleterre” again: and understanding none of the idioms. What a howling bore the man is! yet all the old anecdotes and all the other peoples’ witticisms which he strings together are in themselves good. He may even be good himself. But he rouses all the Pharisee in me. However his recipe for happiness when you are distressed is good: “reflect that you are not in Ireland.” I know if I went to Ireland (Italy, Germany, Greece Russia, even Palestine) I should like it. that is why I shall not go.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
P&O.S.N.Co.
S.S. Viceroy of India
Red Sea
May 19th 1938
My darling Annette
The voyage is flowing by peacefully and comfortably. We have not been bothered by heat at all – To-day, half way up the Red Sea – its quite cool and very windy. I am being somewhat quiet and retired – reading a lot. I have a few old friends on board and have made one or two acquaintances – including a man in the Education Service from Lahore, whom I find interesting. He is an ardent protagonist for improved and rational methods of education, even going so far as to believe that co-education, properly run, is the right thing. Its fun talking to him – He’s so keen and a bit of an anarchist in political matters as well – so that his conversation is definitely stimulating.
This letter wont reach you much before I do, which will be a week to-morrow – so there is no point in spinning it out –
My love to you – my dear
from
Mum
From HPV to family No 2
Chinsura,
May 19th 1938.
Thursday
My dear Joan,
My dear younglings,
This evening I have received visitors. After walking round the estate, but it was too late to do anything except verify that a rescue pole had been placed in the new cistern and that the humus heap was complete except for the trenches or gutters, I sat down to read certain remarks which had come in from Bankura in reply to the famous Government questionnaire about irrigation in Bengal (and if this is a specimen of the average set of replies they might as well have saved themselves the trouble of issuing it): and then round the corner appeared Stein. I led him towards the stairs when into the porch sailed the car of the Holmans. So there was quite a reunion. Mrs Holman said that their electricity had failed and that the heat was awful; and it may be that it was for this reason that they all sat on talking till 9.10. However it was pleasant enough and Stein was quite talkative. It is sad that everybody is so intensely respectful –but I suppose that I shall miss it when I retire.
The reason why it was too late to do anything in the garden was that I had tea well after 6; and I had tea well after six because I had been at a prize giving. Two Muhammadan schools combined to invite the prime Minister down here for it, and this morning one of the headmasters came round to say that it would be at 4 and not at 4.30 as previously arranged by the prime Minister. So we were all ready and waiting; and he arrived at 4.30. He said that he couldn’t stay more than half an hour, having to attend two more ceremonies and a show at the Muhammadan Sporting before he caught a train for Cuttack. I thought him looking very tired and seedy; quite unlike himself and what is more quite unlike the Old Chimp, which is (1) an ominous thing and (2) sad news for Fawcus if it reaches his ears . . . Strange to have to feel fond of Fazl Huq because one cannot help being fond of animals. They tried to put in a programme sufficient for full two hours; Fazl Huq left after an hour, having asked me to take over and I put on a time limit, as well as announcing that as all the gentlemen present had had to wait an extra half hour owing to Fazl Huq’s being late we should have to forfeit the pleasure of hearing most of the recitations and songs – loud applause from the gentlemen. Then I have away prizes to I think everyone in both schools, and some had three or four; some imposing books like Chatterbox or the Omnibus Book of Jokes but most humble little paper books, one of which looked very much like a railway time-table. It was like Charlie Chaplin screwing on trouser buttons, the names were called out as fast as a bearded Muhammadan could manage it and a string of Muhammadans went past in front of me each of whom grabbed a book from my hand and salaamed. One very small and serious boy who hadn’t even reached jampot standard was a Bratachari obviously, for he did an arms bending and stretching business before and after receiving his prizes; for he got three in all and raised a laugh from the crowd each time (without knowing it) each time a bigger laugh, and I regret to say that I laughed too. The little Gymnast who after all is not the School Inspector’s son got a prize (though he’s not a Muhammadan of course) and did Bratachari afterwards, having appeared as a Boy Scout to greet Fazl Huq’s arrival. I begin to feel that I know a lot of these boys quite well; and I am wondering if I shall see them again in the guise of Roman Catholics when I go to the Bandel School prize giving on Saturday. A storm has just sprung u; and I realize that I am tired.
Friday May 20th. 1938.
Before dinner (this is After) I did linguaphone records; and I do believe that it would be an interesting pastime enough if M. Bourgeois was not so singular a bore. More rain today; heavy rain; and a Rains-like cloudy sky. The Statesman had a telegram in it today to say that the monsoon has reached Akyab and would be into Bengal very early. Alas! for two reasons; the first is that my Darjeeling trip will probably be in thick mist and rain – there have already been two washouts on the road – and the second is sympathy for the Everest crowd. However as their establishing Camp III was in the paper two days ago and it presumably took their message a fortnight to get in, they may have been to the top by now; or may not. Why did I not look at the date of Tilman’s despatch? Incidentally there was a para in the Statesman which you may not have seen to say that Fenwick Gass was out of danger, and is going home.
A busy day. The Rai Bahadur (name forgotten; the local man who opposed my Development Act in Council and is now no end keen to get the two and three-quarter crore scheme for this district and such started under it) came in this morning to discuss the whole matter. We exchanged beautiful thoughts and spiritual consolation for nearly an hour and a half. He has written a letter in Bengali damning the Ananda Bazar Patrika, which means newspaper, in heaps because of their attack on my speech; and strange to say he gave me an exegesis on the actual amount of paddy yielded on the average in these parts which seemed to me amazingly good (because it was practically what I told Government three years ago) with explanations from his own experience. Also comments on things; for instance, twenty ago, as everyone knows, goalas used to sell their daughters because the were so poor, but now they don’t sell their daughters because they sell their cowdung; but I must have misunderstood slightly what he said because he went on to say that the people of Calcutta made it into curds and sweet-meats. Which illustrates the way in which Herodotus probably got mixed up. So I took him out and showed him the humus as a treat. Then follow – the Settlement man who has been told off by the D.L.R. to do the land-classification for the Hooghly Scheme of mine; I harangued him as to the great things that might result and he told me that the village headmen had been assisting no end since I made my speech because word has gone round that it is an order. Immediately after him was the shaven headed gentleman ex-P.W.D. who sat with the big walking stick at the Town Club display at the Ditch theatre; he was seeking money on behalf of the girls’ school from Government and I promised to go and look at it this afternoon. After that I wrote hostile things about the Government Questionnaire on Irrigation, and spent till three thirty on it with a pause for lunch. Tired afterwards and did routine listlessly for a bit. It was quite dark all afternoon owing to the heavy rain. At five I went out to see the school which is really remarkable, having been built three stories in the last five years without Government help and raised in numbers from 13 to nearly 300. I discovered that the old gentleman had just started his son on a market gardening business, large scale 40 labourers, and said You will want to know about humus. And he did; most anxious like. He examined the pit and the heap which he fingered judiciously like an expert mucker, told me the money value of the night-soil wasted in India, and took away the directions to type them out. I shall get them back because he knows that if I don’t he will not get the Government help for the school. But I do believe that he is the real humus minded disciple for whom I have been searching. He has two tanks and two casks and a mango grove and jungle and he had already thought of growing a green manure.
Saturday May 21st. 1938
Virtue has gone out of me. It was a most tiring day, with drenching rain all the afternoon. It got thicker and thicker and at 3.45 when I decided to lie down for a bit because I felt dead-beat and wished to recuperate before sitting bolt upright in a heated room for an hour and a half, it was so dark in the bedroom that I could see nothing and had to turn on the light. Following Jerry Symon’s tip I lay flat on my back and bent my knees and stretched my neck; strange to say it seemed to work for 15 minutes of this by the end of which I could not keep my knees bent any longer (they fell sideways) restored me to an extent unbelieved. By the time of my start it had stopped raining; I arrived 5 minutes late on purpose because I knew from last week that their clock is slow (it was in the same hall as the Boy Scouts show) and found that none of the inviteds had arrived. The rain had stopped them. The padre asked me if I minded waiting ten minutes before starting and though I did I said I didn’t; he took me round and from the roof of the church showed me the area which they hope to get hold of for agricultural purposes. One guess as to the subject on which I at once embarked. You are correct. The show was like all Bengal School shows but more humble; and those boys whose shirts had been soaked through while coming took them off. Every one genial. I had to make a speech. Practically no one there could understand English but it is typical of me that I took a lot of trouble over it; or say put a lot of energy into it, for I hadn’t prepared anything. Decidedly it ought to have been I who preached to the Penguins: Idemand myself whether if a Saint baptised Bengalis they would be given souls as the best way out of it. Goodwill all round. The Rai Bahadur proposed a vote of thanks; that makes three times in eight days and I begin to be ashamed to look him in the face; he was most complimentary, ending by the remark that it was a strange but I was most keen on moral improvement. No. I am not clever with the carbon paper; owing to having it bent over, I get carbon on to the paper guide thing and it smears the whole page. Alas that I am going into Calcutta tomorrow, for I should like a thorough slack. Today I told the mali about the ventilating drains in the humus pit; let us see if he steals all the contractor’s bricks.
Monday Depression is heavy upon me. As I had prophesied, or did I merely think it? as I had expected anyhow, Ron did not arrive yesterday. Winsome said that she had tried again and again to get me on the phone and say that he had postponed his coming, but could not get further than the Barrackpore exchange; she added that she thought it would be nice for me anyway to come in for a change. And so in a way it was; if I hadn’t been tired to begin with. After sleeping badly, I overslept by half an hour which was a bad beginning after Winsome’s adjurations that I should come in early. We got in fairly quickly and I felt quite vigorous; the man who is going with Ron has red hair and disasters are in his family; to wit an aunt who was a missionary was eaten by cannibals after teaching them Christianity for twenty years and an uncle was put into a nest of driver-ants in the Congo and had his bones picked. We debated at intervals what was likely to this bird but inspiration was lacking, and whatever it turned out to be he’d take it as a matter of course. The programme was a bathe at Tollygunge; there were a lot of people there and I realised very suddenly that all the people of our time have become old; the men are fat and bald and lined and bowed and white-haired and over-thin and very given to being bara sahibs. There have been a lot of alterations which may be improvements; chiefly removing railings in front of the Club and replacing those in front of the swimming bath and changing rooms, with a low flat-topped stone balustrade. The swimming bath has been lined with patent stone; new shower-baths put in and a set of broad shelves for holdalls and suitcases to be stacked on. The bath is quite pleasant. A lot of people came in just as we left. I went off the top once to oblige Winsome; and I got water unpleasantly into my ears so that I could not get it out all day. They had the Charles Carey Morgans in to tennis. Did you know, my dear Joan, that she had recently had measles? Also there was Gwen Graham, who is going home at the beginning of July because the girl has decided to get married at an earlier date than had been agreed upon. After the tennis I went off and bought tooth paste and some spirit, but I may as well anticipate and tell the sad truth that arriving home collapsed with weariness I dropped the parcel and my rupee’s worth of spirit was thus lost to me; that journey from Calcutta is trying. They gave me an early dinner – very good – and I was back here very soon after eleven. Charlotte proud of a piece of sticking plaster on her leg (a mosquito bite) has learnt the word ‘Stinker’ from Ron’s companion; for he greets all strange dogs as either that or ‘Smellie’; and she now says very little else.
Today I have been rushed; a letter from Macpherson asking for some information by return about the cost of paddy cultivation in Burdwan, because there is an appeal to be dealt with; it meant my doing it on the nail for my morning had to be given to hearing appeals and if I postponed a reply it would be too late; but I was peeved because, if he really read the files on which he so glibly lays down the law, he would not have had to ask my help. The appeals with speeches from four Babu lawyers were almost too dull to be able to understand. And after lunch the Collector whose name – Hartley. I had sat for several minutes cudgelling my brains and unable to recall it. – Hartley came in to talk about the prospects of getting my scheme going in this district. He says that if the people realise that Government officials are keen on it the Congress will damn it and it will not have a chance; they have suggested to him that certain non-officials should work up an agitation condemning Government for not taking it up; but no non-officials except the Congress have an organisation or the energy to work up a plausible agitation over 1000 square miles. Also it is certain that the Congress would not be bluffed and would work up a counter movement anyhow; and it would then be too late for us to sail in while the non-officials would certainly curl up and retire. At the moment I do not feel capable of tackling the situation. If I had the backing of Government and was given money for printing pamphlets and posters and some staff (or even without the staff) I could raise such a stir among the people that the Government and the Congress would not be able to do anything; but with Government wanting to back out of it, the Congress hostile because they think Government to be keen on it and a congenital proud stomach like Macpherson controlling the Irrigation Department, I fear that I am beat.
I might have known it; the mali has followed his own ideas about the humus pit while I have been away, and manufactured an enormous mat of bamboo splits which is now poised on bricks like a floor to the pit; it would probably be quite a good idea if it were not that the bamboo will rot.
The Darjeeling show has been postponed for a week; and I have had to postpone for another week the appeals which were originally fixed for the Monday which at first they selected for the conference. This means hurrying down as soon as the conference is over instead of having the King’s birthday holiday up there.
Tuesday May 24th.
But I don’t know why I should make a grievance of this when I would rather not go up at all and am already in prospect lamenting the masses of accumulated work that I shall find waiting for me when I get back. As it is I am snowed under; I didn’t write judgments on the appeals that I heard yesterday and today I felt too dispirited and weary even to look at them; which is bad because I have more fixed for tomorrow, and have also to write then my fortnightly report which is due then. After tea today I just sat for nearly an hour. On the East verandah. There was a cool breeze and the river looked pleasant, but I didn’t look at it. The mali by the way says that as clearly nothing is going to come of the coloured-leaf things in the bed near the drain from the kitchen we had better put in zinnias instead; but for all I know they may be precious. I renewed my motor license here today; it isn’t necessary to take it to Calcutta. After sitting I went out and returned the three calls; the Judge’s, the policeman’s, and the Assistant Policeman’s – a lad named Carman. The Judge was out; he has a Fox Terrier which is tied up. So was the A.S.P.: he also has a Fox Terrier and it also is tied up. The reason is the danger of death from the Bull Terrier which appears to be a public nuisance. Holman was out but Mrs. Holman was in and I sat talking to her for twenty minutes. On the way back I talked to the tennis players for a while and then came here and changed. Afterwards I sat and read Blackwoods which is in circulation from the club, and did not either get out the gramophone and improve my mind or go down and do a spot of work. Were the dignified Commissioners whom I revered in my childhood really brooding over inability to keep pace with things? I could keep pace with them easily enough if I could put my signature to the tripe turned out by the office. It is indeed rank bad. I see from an order of Burrows’ refusing to confirm the sacking of Jerry Symons’ stenographer (for being useless) that outside Calcutta eighty words to the minute are as much as stenographers are supposed to be able to manage; so it is no wonder that my man is useless to me.
The Burdwan Club has offered to make me a member; out-station terms, Rs. 10 down and 2/- per month; I really see no reason why I should pay this though it seems to have been the custom with my predecessors.
The bearer is down again with fever. Idris Matthews flew over this evening, but I was near the tennis court and I do not suppose that he spotted me waving to him. My idea of looking in on him on Sunday morning I renounced owing to Winsome’s being so keen on my arriving promptly.
The third attempt on the southernmost white-ant heap (with all the remains of the Cyanogas but insufficient) has again been a failure; there are indications of intense activity all round the heap.
Wednesday, May 25th.
Hard to believe that this is only the second of these circular letters that I have sent out – or maybe third. The sameness of things is such as to give the impression that I had done nothing but this for ages. The day’s news is much as was to be expected. The stenographer is a broken reed; to spare him I have not been dictating but he came along this evening and said that he feared he was going blind and asked if a clerk might not come in for several hours a day to do the typing for him or if he might not be given a superior clerk’s post in the office – for which he has no qualification save the ordinary Bengali conceit and which he could not hold down if his sight is as bad as he says. Decidedly I have no luck with stenographers. The general standard of noting here is miserably bad, except Revenue technicalities perhaps on which I am no judge. All this a propos of the fortnightly report on the state of the division which it takes me hours to write out in long-hand but which it is useless to attempt to dictate. Rain again today. But reports from some of the districts say that they are still short. Loud complaints from a squirrel today brought me out onto the verandah to see what was wrong; it was climbing the lightning rod and stopping on every one of the brackets which fasten this to the wall in order to look round and curse something; but there was nothing in sight except the south end of a mali weeding. Apart from that there has been nothing of human interest in my day. The bearer looked rotten with his fever this morning but better in the evening; he now says that he had thora thora (a little of it) for the past three days. Which did make me mad. The least paid of the malis approached me with a request that I should pay off the money lender from whom he borrowed Rs 40 for his mother’s marriage at Rs 4 per month because he now finds that he will never be able to pay it. The Boy Scouts ask me to be Commissioner: I refuse. The Girl School wants me to be patron; that is because I refused to subscribe monthly. And in many ways I feel that things are a nuisance. Especially the flying things which these last two nights have crawled all over me mostly down my neck.
From HPV to LJT
Chinsura
May 25th
My darling
To think that you will be by now in Marseilles – unless you arrived at night. It feels though as if you had had time to get to Timbuctoo. This last week has been a very long one – but I do not know how I have fallen into this abyss of weariness, for I have been careful, I think, not to work too much. It may be the extras in the evenings.
What have I done but weakly consent to go into Calcutta again next Sunday. Ron is writing his book and cannot come out here as Winsome decided he she and it (the companion of Ron) would. Somehow effectively to refuse Winsome one has to make such a fuss of things. True, I am tired but I felt that I should have to pose as dead to dodge the Sunday business. And so I surrendered gracefully.
As soon as I heard the Darjeeling trip was postponed I wrote to say that I couldn’t attend the Hogg farewell dinner. But a letter demanding Rs 12/- from me crossed mine: if they have made the contract and can’t dodge it I shall have to pay: but it is almost worth it to dodge the dinner.
Why should so many frogs come into this house? and why so fat and so grey? – I have spared a black ant heap because they were working so busily at their schemes and their development and uplift generally.
Writing a circular letter utterly destroys the mind. I send a copy to Peter but realise that there is little intelligible in it: and I shall have to write her a letter. Also Rosemary, probably: for she has written me two, since you left. The others none yet: but I dont blame them.
Much love, my sweet poppet,
and I hope your voyage went well and that nothing happens to tonights Paris trains.
Ever your
Toto
Thursday Last night in our bedroom I had to slay a horrible big centipede which looked white with green stripes.
From HPV to family No 3
Chinsura
Friday, May 26th 1938
My dear Joan
And Whatnots.
Yesterday I took a holiday from letter-writing. In other words I wrote letters all day but not after dinner. Instead I refrained from action and read Miss Eden’s letters; which are not exactly tiring to the mind; save that I mind myself prejudiced against her for having belonged to Vice-regal circles. At breakfast and at lunch today I continued reading them but then my proud spirit broke. I have reason to fear or think that at Chinsura, or in this house there are horrid dangers; for as I was coming out of the bathroom on Thursday night there came rushing upon or toward me a loathly centipede, a big one, say seven inches, but particularly unpleasant because it was a sickly white with broad green stripes. I killed it with a shoe. But now I feel whenever I lift the mosquito net to crawl under it in the dark that perhaps there is a centipede lurking in it on the floor and that I am dropping it on my neck. In my experience centipedes have no business to be any colour except black or brown. We were all led by Alice down from Beau-lieu to a little grocer’s which must have been somewhere near the house where the Burtons gave us lunch when we came out by Gib. Somehow there was some money available to buy sweets and it was very exciting because the sweets would be used for playing shop, which would as Alice gave us to understand make everything much better than usual; the sweets purchased were large balls of rough chocolate, big marble-size, -but there is some confusion of memory because I feel that there was some question of my having a large flattish sponge finger there. The shop was to be played at the west end of a not very broad verandah; there was some furniture of sorts against the wall and some flower pots and I think the verandah was boarded – and here memory breaks into a muddled impression of our running away in terror and of people coming and of my being shown afterwards the big black centipede that had been disturbed by the shop; in a bottle. No memory of having any of the chocolate; perhaps one of us had sufficient presence of mind to eat it quickly while the others were busy; the type of thing that at a later age I should have done myself, to save waste. But surely I could not even then (how old? three?) have submitted to being done out of anything without squalling and I do not remember any grief. Ask Arla someone if she remembers this incident – or even Parp. There was also a scorpion one day but there was no excitement about that; merely a black thing which in some way belonged to Bill, then called Willie, and which is mixed up with the peeling of a prickly pear, pink on the end of a small stick, and with a feeling that I might be expected to taste it. Even then I must have had a proper dislike of new tastes. With what hatred and consciousness of injustice I gazed at Beau-lieu on the workmen who removed the steps leading down to the terrace at the bottom of the garden where there was the orange tree and built up a sort of thin hedge (of bean poles?) between our garden and it. With what complacency also I looked upon the 110-ton gun being dragged up the road in front of the house. But dragged by what, I cannot recall. Them was the days – but they are a digression, not likely to interest my readers.
Still not up to date, and it is no real consolation to know that I have put in some quite good work these last two days. It rained hard yesterday. Incidentally there are a lot of stegomuia mosquitoes in the house, day-biters and breeding on the premises, for that is their nature, but I do not know where. Besides these other types are thick at night. This evening flying ants also. I fiddled about in the garden; but there is not much to do there unless I buy some implements; for to bend over and weed would give me belly ache. Which reminds me that according to the Statesman the leading player of the Burma Football team which has come to Calcutta is named Saw Belly, pronounced of course just as you would hope. The Rai Sahib came in today to return the papers on humus and to have discourse on the subject. Already he calculates the profits to three places of decimals; but he says that he has made the pit in his market-garden. Wood ash? why, there is a rice mill next door with ashes two feet deep everywhere. He has moved his cows from the house to the garden. Enthusiasm is his portion. Incidentally the municipality can supply manure at the rate of two carts only per day; it is apparently a perk of certain menials.
Saturday May 28th.
I apologise to those who will get defective copies of the last page; I have before this lamented that I lack skill with the carbon papers but that doesn’t improve matters; the electric fan was to blame – tonight it will be the wind, which is strong. It has poured, drenched, dreened with rain today; and now it is really cold. At this I stopped to go and see the thermometer: it shows only eighty! But really in spite of that it is cold. There is a leak onto the verandah in front of the upstairs office, near the wall of the bedroom and I am wondering whether as the rain continues and intensifies this leak will spread into the bedroom
Hartley came in yesterday after I had finished tea (but I was working for want of something to do, for it was pouring) and talked: I insisted on his having tea and he stayed quite a time. The talk was shop. One item was that he had got hold of the Congress leader from Hooghly, the Vice-Chairman of the District Board in fact, who had violently attacked the Hooghly-Howrah irrigation scheme and myself at a political conference held recently, and had cross questioned him as to his reasons. The good man eventually admitted that he knew nothing about the scheme and nothing about the Act (the main idea of which he said sounded very fair when Hartley told him what it was) but explained that he was going by what The Ananda Bazar had said. Hartley was rather indignant but I have dabbled enough in Bengal politics to know that this was rather more careful preparation than most politicians give to their speeches. Today also I have had a visitor; Mr Griffin to lunch. He had come up to inspect the water works and says that before long we ought to have quite a good supply; perhaps even the upstairs taps will run (my comment). It was a pleasant change to have a new line of shop to listen to. It seems as if that were the only line of talk which interested me these days.
Still not up to date. But if I hadn’t been too slack to write a judgment in an appeal after working through it and coming to a decision, I should have been almost so. I wonder if it would have been better to work this evening before dinner instead of spending half an hour printing by hand race-game cards for H.D. It is a mark of my pessimism as to things in general that I have this year taken a Calcutta sweep ticket; if I did happen to win anything, I might clear out – yet I do not want to till it is clear beyond any possible hope to the contrary that I have lost my battle against Bijoy the Maharaja the Congress the Eastern Bengal Proja party (which means Fazl Huq) the Finance Department and the great bulk of the great Bengali nation. And now that I have set them all out in order, it does look as if there was hope even now. However none of them has even louse-guts; and maybe even now this and that may be done. I took as my pseudonym for the sweep ticket OTOTO which in his chit giving me the number H.D. has converted into an ingenious picture of umbrellas held at various angles by the crowd watching the finish; it shows how strong is heredity that H.D. scrawls in the style in which Brother Bill used to draw when he did draw. What an extraordinary thing that idea was that one of our family could make a living as an artist! or that I should imagine that I can use even one finger on the typewriter with any good result.
The bearer’s fever is better. The fat chaprassi has taken four days leave in order to arrange some form of feast for his son. There are to be 14 men at it. And it is obviously a great function. The next development will be that I shall be asked to finance it.
Monday May 30th.
When I got into Calcutta yesterday, I found that my watch was twenty five minutes fast. That is the 12/- shilling Ingersol, but there is no clock in the house that really does better. It had poured all night and it was very dark in the morning; I thought that I had overslept by half an hour but of course it was the watch. I deduce that I have been getting up about five minutes earlier each day in the week - for I last set the watch last Sunday. Ron was there all right this time; typing on the verandah. At least he had been and went back to it after greeting me. He is as big as evern (I wish that I did not so often hit that n instead of the space-bar) but looked and confessed to being flabby about the waist. I refused to bathe for fear of weariness and ear-trouble such as overcame me last week and eventually all idea of a bathe fell through and we went instead again to feed the fish, from the little bridge leading to the mosque on the island in the Dhakuria lake. Did I tell of this last week? Puffed rice or parched gram thrown off the bridge brings a host of big fish up to the surface to gulp at it; forty or fifty maybe; the water boils with them; and every now and then there is a tremendous scurry and tail-thrashing and they bolt away from one place – for no reason that we could see or guess. It is well worth both the labour of walking 50 yards from a car to the bridge and 2 annas for muri or gram. Ron and I ate some of the muri for sheer sadness; it was just like puffed rice but a bit mouldy-like. Talking of fish Cyril Gurner’s Great Dane has died. From living with Cyril, Harry says; but from living in a Calcutta top flat, says Winsome. It is folly or cruelty, say I, to bring such dogs to the plains of Bengal. After lunch all slept; I too, but perversely only for twenty minutes. For tea we went out to Tollyganj where I refrained almost from saying Who is that? – falling from grace once only when the Cruikshanks were coming towards us; and I remembered the name on the moment. It was a dark day; indeed the rains have set in; and eventually I suggested going to the movies. So we did; at least Winsome and Ron’s Companion and I did. I have already forgotten the name of it; but it had in it as a Hotel Porter the Hotel Manager from the ‘King steps out’ and as the millionaire the second entrepreneur from the Great Ziegfeld, whom I disgraced myself by calling the Great Sambuk. The journey back after dinner was less wearisome than last week because it had cleared and I had the hood down and also there was less traffic on the road owing to the rain.
I called in on Matthews on the way in. It drenched just as we neared the factory and though he was sitting at the breakfast with the remains of the squirrel meal there they had gone off; owing to the rain,/ he said. When I hit that / by accident it startled me so that I jumped in my seat, like Mr. Jameson when the Ramnagar woman came in dragging her husband with the dhoti round his neck. (The dhoti went off riding on the donkey, said Ron’s companion who is learning Hindustani fast; he has the engaging trick of making Hindustani-like noises very fast to coolies and such and then they suppose that he is talking Persian or high-class Urdu and feel humble; but, moi, I should not like to go into the wilderness with that parishioner for he is a professed humourist.) Matthews is well; he has forgotten the eat more salt cure, but speaks well of abstinence from tea-drinking and from eggs. Which reminds me that I have indigestion now and Winsome was lamenting recurrences of wind yesterday.
It has rained like blazes today. I sallied out to see if it would be auspicious to start the humus pit filling but renounced it and instead led the troop to turn over the first humus heap; it was still quite hot; and it looks as if it would be the snake’s pyjamas before long, being already nice and black and obviously rotting fast. The Malis killed the snake by the way; the bara Mali threw his kodali at it as the others fell backwards, for it came out from the heap just under their feet, and broke its back. Cobra size; but I don’t know that it was dangerous. I always feel that snakes are probably harmless; but the malis don’t. Yes, I disliked that centipede far more; but I do not say that I should have enjoyed tackling the snake with a slipper.
The Ananda Bazar Patrika has produced a leader, hedging; it doesn’t apologise to me but, moved by a speech of the little Professor Mukharji who was on the Cathay with us (“So you are Professor Mukharji, are you? Then I want your head on a charger – with the blood.” That one.) and is a leading Congress light and who has just said that if steps are not taken two-thirds of Bengal will be a wilderness before long, it has attacked Government for not using the development Act and suggested their giving way to other Ministers who would. So I told the P.A. to find another independent gentleman who would fire in a stout letter about the new mistakes that they have made this time. The Rai Bahadur’s seems to have shaken their morale; yes, my dear Annette and my dear Richard, I mean morale and none of your poodling moral on which that degenerate organ the Times dotes so fondly; and fondly means foolishly. Now I detest pedants; of whom I am among the chief to the best of my ability.
Tuesday May 31st. 1938.
The white ants have returned or revived in every place in which steps against them were taken, whether digging or drugging. Mosquitoes are breeding in the new cistern. The mali complains that at night cows come in through the open gate and suggests padlocking it at 6 o’clock; he suggests that the mistris who sleep here leave it open. The bearer says that this cannot be: and that they are good men – the come from Dacca! That must be the least consequential remark ever made in this world. He also says that of course the gate is left open by the lunatic who sleeps here; the one who goes on the parade ground when the police are drilling and drills with them. Naturally I asked why a lunatic slept here; the reply is (grandly) ‘Many sleep here’. The lunatic is the fat chaprassi’s father; and what is more he is a chaprassi himself though not one of mine. What a world! After ascertaining that the mem-sahib had not sanctioned this, I let it be. This morning I did other things than work for quite a time; humus; I supervised the filling of the pit. Causing the malis to make agreeable mucking; to wit, a mixture of six kerosene tins of water, two baskets of cow-dung and half a basked to wood ashes and the earth from the cow-shed. To fill one third of the pit to a depth of 3’6” took 25 times this (“this” made one tub full), nearly the whole of the great heap of leaves, and the whole day for the three men. I spent half an hour in the morning and haf in the afternoon there, organising. They will do it all too minutely, arranging the leaves by hand and putting on nearly twice as much of the agreaeables as I told them to. It is a strange thing, that after all the heavy rain that there has been, only the top 2 or 3 inches in the leaf pile were wet. A lot of what was wet had started rotting and I am wondering whether this will be a handicap; probably it is the wrong sort of fungus at work. The mali is now an enthusiast, for he led me to the leaf-mould pits in the vegetable garden and suggested that we might use their contents for a new humus heap there; he pointed out that they are almost as near to the water (dhobi’s tank) as the pit on which we had been working. As there seems to be plenty of leaf-mould anyhow I said that he might get on to it. The fan in the bedroom wouldn’t work last night; it is on the same circuit as those in the spare rooms and the mistris had applied so much whitewash on their walls that the water had run down into the switches and shorted them. The workers at the Burnpur Steel Works have given notice of a strike on the 5th; so we are likely to have an animated time soon. The strike at the Tinplate Works has been complicated by one of the stay-inners stabbing one of the strikers; but that is not my business.
Wednesday June 1st. New moon too; very handsome.
The strike is a double one; at Hirapur and at Kulti; 10,000 men at the one and 5,500 at the other. It will please Richard who is opposed to capital to hear that the only demand so far put forward by the strikers-to-be is that they should get strike-pay from the company. It is a mad country. Last year they struck for certain concessions only after they had been promised to them and before there was time to arrange them. I shall not be retiring this year; my ticket drew a blank. This is a great pity. The mosquitoes in the cistern have been dealt with; I forgot that the oil would not suit all the little frogs. The pump on the car has gone and I have sent the driver in to Calcutta to see if it can be mended. We should have bought a new car but now there is no money; if only the ticket had drawn even a little horse! Today I found larvae in the new pit by the cowshed. Truly a house is as much care as an elephant. I raked in the garden this evening; leaves for the humus heap. To the intense interest of all the small Babus. I should have had the leaves looked to before the rains came for now much has been lost, owing to their rotting and becoming tangled with the grass. I sweated; and an hour later still sweat. So ends this week.
Much love to everybody.