Delhi

Above: Living conditions in Delhi

Thursday 1st December 1983

Somewhere along the line in this hellish ordeal we passed into December. We rattled uncomfortably along, and I managed to doze a bit when a spare seat became vacant. The only “light in the darkness” were the tea stops during which I consumed 6 boiled eggs, 7 bananas and a whole host of monkey nuts. George polished off a similar diet as well as an omelette sandwich.

Dawn brought no relief. It remained fucking freezing and more passengers got on. We became cramped amongst vomiting kids, wailing babies, obnoxious adults and a growing pile of peanut shells and cigarette butts. With a sigh of relief we left our mobile hades and jumped onto a Delhi local bus (40 Paise) to Connaught Square.

We went into the Delhicacy and were sorry to discover that our previous good impressions of the place were illusionary. We realised why we has always had our main meals elsewhere. The choice on the menu was very limited. None-the-less, I had a splendid sweet and sour vegetable dish with rice and plenty of crunchy veg.

Next ensued a trudge to the YHA Youth Hostel at 5 Nyaya Marg. We took a “short cut” and ended up in a massive detour around the palace with its sloppy guards. We passed an Indian Navy band tuning up on the lawn and covered the last stretch to the hostel dragging our holdalls painfully.

We booked in with a mass of paperwork and were issued with sheets and pillowcases. We had used the Youth Hostel as a Post Restante address and I was delighted to get five letters and four cards from home, but George was disappointed to only get one.

I got news from my maternal grandparents (my paternal grandparents were dead by this time), my parents, my brother Nicholas, my sister Katherine, Liz Craythorne, Keith “Reggie the Dog” Nunn, and Rob Rowe from BP Research where I had been working.

I was also pleased to get one from Kerry, a girl in my Judo class, and a card from my uncle Don Vicary (mum’s brother) and his wife Auntie Barry. We read our mail over coffee in the restaurant in this most impressive youth hostel. We moved upstairs to the quiet library when a fat northern English beanbag started spouting his travel plans to a pudgy white bint.

I wrote to Rob Rowe (a fellow Research Assistant at BP Research Centre in Sunbury-upon-Thames) and George started reading “The Snow Leopard”. We hit the sack at 21:30 hrs. after another quick coffee.