I was born in 1935 in Calcutta. My father worked in Gillanders Arbuthnot, which was the oldest and biggest of the managing agencies. We lived in No 7, Regent Park, which was a big house with a lovely garden. And it was my home until I was nine.
We had a European nanny and her main job was to stop us from speaking to the servants too much and learning Hindi, because her greater ambition really was that we should remain, although living in India, strictly English. Nanny ruled the place quite strictly. We would only see our parents at limited times of day. Early in the morning Nanny would take us for a ride. We had two ponies: one was called Cherry, and when she gave birth to another one, he was called Pip, as he was a pip out of a cherry. After the ride, we would be taken to our parent’s bedroom where they would be having chota hazri—green bananas and tea. We would have breakfast with them. The next time we would see them would be in the evening at their drinks time. We would come down in our dressing gowns, having had our bath, and then there would be a strict time at which we would go to bed. One of the greatest excitements in those days was being allowed to stay up late.
Despite Nanny we became very fond of some of the servants, particularly the nursery boy, Zafar. He was a very kind chap and every time he went out—on leave or something like that—he would bring us some little toys back, which I thought was wonderful, seeing how little he earned.
Another important person in my childhood was my grandfather, a jute broker. He didn’t live with us but would visit often. Because he was sort of semi-retired he often came at tea-time. He defied the family rules and taught us nursery rhymes in Hindi. Nanny who was very fond of grandfather would pretend to be very cross with him. To this day I remember Little Miss Muffet and Humpty Dumpty which he taught me. Miss Muffet went like this: “Muffeti Muffeti Mai/ Bageeche main baitha,/ Kuch parvaah naai/ Ek bara makra pakra pakra,/ Bhaag gaya Muffeti Mai.” And Humpty Dumpty: “Humpty Dumpty baitha tha chat/ Humpty Dumpty gir gaya phut/ Raja aaka aadmi, Raja ka ghoda/ Humpty Dumpty kabhi nahin joda.”
On many Sundays we would go by bicycle or walking to Behala where there was the Oxford Mission and a remarkable priest called Father Douglas. They used to have a tea party every Sunday. I remember especially the Christmas Eve service of Behala which was very much part of our Christmas. It was a very beautiful service, with lovely singing and incense and everything. The service at Behala gave me my lasting love of Anglican liturgy and what I might call Anglo-Saxonesque worship.
There are several things I think when I think back about Calcutta. I remember the excitement of an ever-growing family. I was number two and by the time we left India in 1945 there were six of us. So there was always the excitement of a new baby in the house.
I remember the riverside very well. I was absolutely terrified of the puja processions, when they would take the goddess to be immersed in the Hooghly. Because there was all this noise, these very terrifying images of the goddess and, of course, the fact that we had been brought up to believe that one should not commit idolatry. So there was this sort of ‘terrible sinning’ going on in a very frightening and alarming way. In later life, of course, I came to have a great appreciation for Hinduism.
Every winter we would go to Puri by train and stay at the Vienna Hotel. In those days you used to have those wonderful carriages, where you would have an entire compartment for the family. In Puri there was great rivalry between the children: we each had our favourite fisherman. Mine was fisherman no. 21.
The Viceroy used to come to Calcutta every Christmas and he gave huge, great parties. The thing that sticks in my mind about that party is the Calcutta Fire Brigade demonstration where they would have these great big ladders which they would climb up and shoot water all over the place.
Tollygunge Club was just up the road and we would be taken to play and swim there by Nanny. We used to have tea on the lawn at Tolly Club with my parents. There used to be boys with red flags to keep the crows away. My mother would always tell me that my father proposed to her on the 18th Hole of the Tollygunge Golf Club.
The other place we were very fond of was the Calcutta Swimming Club, on Strand. We used to have wonderful breakfasts there. From time to time we were taken into Calcutta by my mother. There were huge great shops like Hall and Anderson, Army and Navy Stores, and Whiteaway & Laidlaw’s. All in all it was a very European life.
I remember my home perhaps with all the more affection, for, at age five, I was sent to school in Darjeeling during the War. We went to a special school, the New School, set up for English children who couldn’t get back to school in England because of the War.
We used to go to school on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, of which my father was a director (being director of Gillanders Arbuthnot, which ran the DHR). And I loved that railway. Going on that train was some sort of tamasha. You would get out of the train and run up the khud, then get up the khud before the train got there, hanging out of the door, that sort of thing. And all the children would be crying when the train went out of the station, but a little later we all sort of got together and started having fun and forgot about it. So I guess my love of trains came partly from there. It was magical for a kid then, Howrah Station, huge gates, all those engines, people rushing by.
The beauty of the New School was that we were very free there, and wandered around Darjeeling. We used to go up to the American recreation camp, where we were given chocolates. In the market I was fascinated by the rickshaw people playing crown and anchor. We could get our milk in Keventer’s Bar.
We got back to England just before the War ended. It was a huge shock, moving from this rather luxurious home in Calcutta to my mother’s place. My father stayed back in India for a few years. My mother had no servants, no help, no nothing. The weather was bleak and grim compared with India and then I was admitted to prep school which was a complete contrast to the Darjeeling school. It was one of those traditional schools where you’re shut up behind high walls.
I realised the imprint of Calcutta on my mind the day I moved to Delhi in 1965, 20 years after we left. I was standing on the balcony of my room in Claridges Hotel. It was winter and there was a lovely smell of winter flowers plus the smell of malis cooking their food on a dung fire. With the smell of the flowers and that smoke my whole childhood seemed to rush through my head.
My first incarnation in Delhi I lived in Hauz Khas, then in Jor Bagh, finally settling in Nizamuddin.
In those days, Hauz Khas was not a village in the sense it is a village now. It was still a village with buffaloes, etc. The only hotels really were the Imperial (the Oberoi was just coming up), Claridges. Hauz Khas I was told I shouldn’t go live in, because it was so far people wouldn’t come for dinner parties.
One of my early memories of Delhi is of a lunch party given by Amita Malik. I remember it for two things: the fish head curry, which was a startling culinary introduction for a newcomer, and the bright, bright blue sky. And in those days one used to look forward to winter in Delhi. Now I rather dread December and January.
Delhi was totally different then. I would describe it as a city of bicycles then. There were very few cars on the roads and no flyovers. And, of course, the whole of east Delhi was virtually a jungle. Where all the institutional buildings are now, I remember we had jackals. Andrews Ganj was a huge great market garden in those days. The Ring Road was quite new. A correspondent friend of mine bought a house near the ridge in old Delhi as the Ring Road made getting to New Delhi quite easy.
The other huge difference between then and now is the lack of security. In the late 1970s you could just walk into Morarji Desai’s house, when he was prime minister. There used to be a guard at the gate, you would just ask him, is the old man there? Morarji was a very friendly person, and if he was there the guard would say yes. No search, no nothing like that.
I have lived in my current flat in Nizamuddin (East) for 26 years. Nizamuddin is a lovely part of Delhi, next to Humayun’s Tomb. It’s very central. There’s that beautiful wall, and many apartments have lovely views of the monuments themselves.
Eastern UP to me is the heart of India, and I like Varanasi very much. I feel it’s a very poetic part of the country, a very Indian part. And I sometimes wonder whether my affection for the place doesn’t have a genetic origin, After all, my great great-grandfather was an opium agent in Ghazipur.