The lead up to this trip, because of my coming of age, was stressful in a way that I find hard to describe. I had been exhausted by the four year period in which my parents’ old age caught up with them and illness and finally death took them away from me, so I wasn’t in a particularly balanced state to begin with. The Captain had been horribly ill over a period of a month that lead up to my big birthday celebrations, and so marking it had become less possible. So, when he had, over a period of a week, succeeded to get his travel visa to India, I thought I would also manage it. But after several attempts over a period of two weeks, I tried and failed several times. I finally begged a well known travel company to try and obtain a visa (they were only able to try for a year long one, which was nearly ten times the price), and eventually, days before we were due to leave, they managed it.
We arrived at Heathrow, all documents printed out as per the warnings we had received only to discover, that we could not check in because the Captain’s Documents were not his actual visa, but the application acknowledgement, so a stressful 45 minutes ensued, where I began to write off the whole of 2025 as a disastrous year in which nothing should ever have been wished for or attempted. However, the Captain located the link to his original document and managed to get the actual visa printed out. The BA flight was excellent and we began to believe that it would all work out, but getting into India is another thing altogether, and for some moments again, I began to think that India did not want our visit at all. But, after many questions, and additional official documents being perused with a fine toothed comb, we were finally permitted to enter.
The first thing that caught our attention was, as we arrived on an early Sunday morning in New Delhi, that it was consumed in a cold, forbidding fog, with a catch in the throat every time we breathed. We discovered it was like this in Delhi most early Januaries, and that the air pollution (which was causing the fog) was an acknowledged problem. For moments we wondered if this holiday had been a dreadful mistake…timing-wise and location-wise. But the Captain had arranged for us to stay in the best set of hotels, The Oberoi, and as time went by, the food and the novelty grew to be interesting and extraordinary. We had cocktails on the rooftop overlooking vast canopies of trees, (moringa, banya, lime) in between New Delhi buildings (Lutyens being behind many of these) and Humayun’s tomb (more of that later).
We ate an exquisite Chinese meal watching Delhi society ( a mixture of expats and Indians) as they gathered to discuss their work. It was buzzing, busy, going places, in the way that a city that is on the up behaves. Despite the morning fog the next day, it cleared by 10.00 a.m, and we got over our jetlag by the pool sunbathing, steaming and sauna-ing, watching the kites (the actual birds) floating about in the sky, and I got to see an Indian robin close up, with its shiny navy feathers at the front, and dark brown coat surrounding it. We had an early delicious Indian supper and an early night, because the next day we were travelling on to Agra. We knew we would be returning to Delhi for the last two days, so we ringfenced our sightseeing for that time.
It was a bit disheartening to drive through the city and countryside in thick fog, for four hours, as one of the perks we had hoped for was to see some of the land. (We did get to do so later on our other journeys, but these are the things you learn while travelling). What was terribly sweet was the amount of cows in both cities and countryside. They are anywhere and everywhere, and stroll across the road, at their whim, because they are adored. I also adored them. I understood why the community felt that way. They had looks on their faces of knowing that they were special, and it made it all the more warming to observe. Delhi has twice the population of Australia and yet there was zero road rage. People were exceptionally polite and considerate to each other there, it was inspiring.
We arrived to the most beautiful room in Agra, which had a balcony facing the Taj Mahal. The fog was hiding it, but the curtains of mist were eventually drawn by afternoon, and the white/ almost pink tomb palace emerged in its marble splendour. We had dancers and singers on platforms below, while sipping hot toddies and taking in the strange sense of mystery that pervaded our souls as we immersed ourselves in this new land. We had steaming warm swims (the pool, to compensate for Indian winter, was set at 28 degrees), then warm baths and watched the days start to arrive as the fog lifted late mornings.
We went on an early morning tour of the Taj, surrounded by mist and icy winds, and saw it from a perspective that few would have encountered. It was looming, white and magnificent, as if covered in snow, but the history behind Shah Jahan and his love for his second or third wife troubled both of us. He loved her to death, after fourteen children, despite having other wives and numerous concubines. The Taj took 22 years to be built by 20, 000 workers and artisans from all over the world. The detail of symmetry and inlay of the material with precious gems produced in me a mixture of awe and horror, as it became clear that worker’s dedication to pleasing the Shah will have been all-consuming. How pleasant must it have been to try and appease such a large ego? Hmmm. His own son, who was also not one the nicer personalities locked him up in a room overlooking the end of the work of the Taj, placing his daughter in charge of nursing him, (because women, after all, are either only useful for sex, procreation or nursing), then finally put him to death. When you look at the Taj Mahal with those eyes, you begin to see them in the same way as you might look at some of the properties of Henry VIII. Beautiful, grand, but at what expense? Towards the end, we saw egrets bathing and plodding about the grounds, enjoying being sprayed by a sprinkler that had been placed specifically for them, and I wondered whether they were having a better time than the associated humans entrenched in the history of the place.
We were taken to one of the many marble workshops to watch how the family workers (the same families who had been lodged and employed by the Shah all those years ago) manipulated strings and stones in order to shape the many gems that were inlaid into this powerful marble. Patient, painful work. I came away with a purchase that was somewhat pressured out of me by the rather Shah-like manager, but it is a beautiful item none-the-less, with inlays of onyx, cornelian (which lights up under a torch), coral, jasper, lapis lazuli, melachite, turquoise, tiger’s eye, mother of pearl, and abalone shell. As I wash my hands and face, I can see it and it will be a reminder that in some beauty, there is pain. In between all this culture, we had massages, ate like Shahs and, as if that wasn’t enough, I seemed to have improved my skills in Double Rummy and beat the Captain in every game.
Apart from a minor night of my upset stomach , the Captain went on a small tour of the Amber Fort, and then we went on our way to Jaipur. All of these four hour journeys were with the same brilliant driver, Opi, who stopped every hour for comfort breaks, in reasonable places. The fog by this time had completely lifted and we drove from what was a very busy set of villages through to land that could have looked like the Cotswolds, but with much more grandeur and majesty. Fields for farming were dotted all over them with trees, large amounts of yellow mustard seed flowers lit up both sides, and then the hills began on either side. A few chimneys that were kilns were smoking away for their pottery businesses, but otherwise, it was glorious, glowing countryside, with what could be described as English Cricket weather.
We arrived in what really felt like paradise. Peacocks wandered about the Oberoi Jaipur grounds, alongside palm squirrels. The sun shone in a warm, golden sort of way, and we were led into our little villa with our own pool. On the main grounds there was already a large, lovely pool, so on the first day we went there, as the Oberoi staff wanted to clean and look after our villa, (boo hoo, what a nightmare, NOT). We returned to discover that they had found a fault in our pool, and as they were not happy with that, and as the Captain also mentioned that he was not happy with that, we were allocated, yes, believe this, the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE, decorated in marigold garlands spelling out my birthday, no less. The Captain had mentioned how upset he was that I had not really enjoyed celebrating my 60th birthday properly. The staff insisted on doing the entire upgrade themselves, so while we spoilt brats lay around the pool working on our suntans, they moved us out of our villa and into the aforementioned suite. Nuff said. Although, spoiler alert, that isn’t the end of presidential suite stories.
We went to the City Palace Museum in Jaipur, the Pink City, and it is all as delicious as it sounds. Entrances painted with peacock designs and other incredibly lovely items of silk and jewellery, (the artisans are some of the leading experts in the world at setting stones by hand), we were led through the life of the Kachwaha royal family, headed by their very handsome Maharaja Sawai Padmanbh Singh. His godfather is our very own Majesty King Charles III. There seemed to be an embedded history of polo and billiards, and of great fascination to me, the largest silver pots I have ever seen. Two of them contained water for King Edward VII, as silver apparently kept all bad bacteria out.
Throughout these glorious days, my late mother visited me in my dreams, leaving me feeling guilty for being alive, on occasion and also feeling the need to share with her the marvellous time I was having. It also brought back how my father had died 9 months previously, and how I wished it had been in a different way, rather than his argument with me in hospital after his operation where he deliriously accused me of messing things up. I wonder at my need to rewrite history and remind myself that no one can make dying any pleasanter, no matter what people say. It is an ugly, horrible business, in some ways as grim and messy as birth, and we have to find a way to accept that a person’s life on this earth, no matter how much you love them, is finite. I guess I will have to get used to missing them and hope that somewhere in the ether, somewhere in this mystery we call earth, they can hear me.
We had dinner with music played on a Santoor, and dancers who could place umpteen crockery pots on their head while they moved their bodies with the freedom of children, singers and splendidness all round. I drank pink gins, with Indian gin, and sparkling wine from India and became certain that I was fully and entirely hooked on India. We were going to have to come back to Shimla (in June), Calcutta, Mumbai, Kerala and numerous other spots.
Lohri (the coming of the sunshine festival) and the kite festival took a turn for changing our emotions as the noise throughout the land became quite rock- concert-rave, continuing through the night with all religions, Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslims gathered to fly kites during the day in ardent battle and have mad, bad music all night, full on 48 hour bender territory. Somehow, we had stopped caring by then, as we were learning the go-with-the-flow-ways of India. No rage. Just polite acceptance.
The drive from Jaipur back to Delhi was joyful, because despite driving back into air pollution, being greeted by the Oberoi’s Pushkar, was like greeting a long lost friend. We felt he may have kept tracks on us, because he told us he had taken the liberty of upgrading our room. Wait for it. Yes, you guessed it. To the Presidential Suite on the Sixth floor. When we were left to it by him, chuffed that I had asked the Captain whether he had recently become the leader of a small country, we danced round the massive suite, bigger than our little home, for at least five minutes. We had a full panoramic view of Delhi and when I had a bath in the huge elegant tub later on that day, I was waving at the birds who floated about outside at my level, over the lush, green tree tops. From one of the windows, we saw Humayan’s tomb and decided that we had to see it up close, not just from our room, bathed in golden sunlight.
The next day, we headed off with Rashiv, who was India’s answer to Paul Giametti, a wonderful, knowledgeable guide. I fell in love with Humayun’s tomb and it’s various buildings and surrounding grounds. It had a beautiful vibe about it. All the symmetry and elegance was so captivating. No wonder Lutyens was so inspired, whose buildings we went to see after that.
We flew back to Blighty, a sense that something marvellous had happened to both of us. We were refreshed, excited, hopeful and rather inspired, I must say. The North Indians taught me that it is possible to have hardship, and continue to use polite clarity to show a civilised edge to their humanity. It is possible to eat mainly vegetarian and have a complete, brilliant diet. We both think it’s possible, that as long as they stem the air pollution problem, India is heading, with its excess of brains and tenacity, towards being a new superpower. Good luck to them. They really deserve it. Like Lutyens, we could learn a thing or two from them.
Kate Terence's Letters from London 