Full Tilt (28 page)

If the monsoon doesn’t break soon I’ll go mad; however grim the rains are they can’t be as bad as this – or so I like to believe. One must have some comforting thoughts.

What a topsy-turvy life this weather drives one to! We left Sirhind at 4.20 a.m. yesterday and as the sky was still overcast I kept going till 11 a.m., by which time we’d covered sixty miles, with frequent pauses for tea-drinking, as however overcast it is the similarity to hell remains marked. In one of my tea-houses a young and very moronic police constable took me for one of the two English girls who recently disappeared en route from Delhi to Lahore.

Perhaps it’s the heat souring my sweet nature, but I like the Punjab less every day. The inhabitants’ chief occupation seems to be squatting watchfully beside fresh cow-pats waiting for the sun to dry them to the point where they can be picked up and kneaded into shape for use as fuel when they’re fully dried. I realise that this sight should move me to pity and compassion but somehow, in my present mood, it simply adds a final touch of squalor to the whole scene.

I slept at a dak bungalow from 11.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then set off again, having decided to take advantage of a full moon and travel through the night. Lots of crazy traffic kept my nerves permanently taut en route as half the population were also employing my tactics. I know now why the top of every Indian bus bristles with cycles: the owners go somewhere by bus during the day and cycle back during the night. However, this national habit of nocturnal travelling means that tea- and eating-houses remain open indefinitely, so I was able to refuel at will. I notice that Indian tea is of an extraordinarily poor quality, the best being exported, and as I’m a China tea addict anyway its only useful purpose here is to convey sugar to the system. But even for this it’s not very successful as sugar is scarce in the Punjab – and strictly rationed in some other states because of an artificially created shortage attributed variously to political chicanery on someone’s part and to the export of sugar to America in lieu of Cuban supplies. The result is that a nasty-tasting derivative of cane-sugar is used in many tea-houses.

An odd thing happened during one pause, when a truck driver offered me £28 in rupees for my watch! It’s possible that he intended
to swindle me with forged notes, but more likely that the offer was genuine, imported goods being at a premium here. Had this watch not been my father’s, I’d have been tempted to do a deal, and may yet sell my camera (illegally) as all the photographs taken so far are worthless.

By the way, I forgot to mention that in Amritsar, two hours after I’d crossed the frontier, Roz’s lamp was stolen. This was the first theft, apart from those cigarettes in Persia, since I left home. And yesterday five one-rupee stamps were swiped off the sitting-room table in a dak bungalow while I went to the lavatory.

Last night’s run was by far my most enjoyable cycle since we left the Kagan Valley; the level plain, transformed by brilliant moonlight, looked quite beautiful. We’d covered the 104 miles to Delhi by 5.30 a.m., averaging a steady fifteen miles per hour on the flat road, and it was already quite bright when we entered the city. I felt that this was not the most appropriate hour to insert myself into the Haddow household – though knowing the Haddows as I do now I’ve no doubt they would have taken my inopportune arrival in their stride – so I curled up on the pavement outside Old Delhi Railway Station and slept there for an hour, with my head and shoulders on Roz’s back wheel, among a multitude of slumbering Indians.

We must have gone astray somewhere on the outskirts, because we should have come directly into New Delhi, and when I woke I had quite a job to find my destination on Janpath, a mysterious boulevard which I’m secretly convinced runs in sixteen different directions, though the Haddows assure me that it goes in a straight line. Anyway, I kept finding myself on sections of it which were never the right section, and in the course of my disorganised peregrinations I saw enough of New Delhi to know I’m going to like it, despite its inevitable atmosphere of being a ‘half-breed’ city.

The Haddows, who have lived here for over thirty years and describe themselves as being among Delhi’s Ancient Monuments, are the exact antithesis to the conventional picture one has of the British in India. Mr Haddow is a dentist, and having put down roots here they elected to remain on after Partition accepting their new status with a most laudable regard for India as a nation, yet not making any crackpot attempts to
lose their own national identity. It’s surprising how few of the old British ruling caste have had the grace to adapt thus to changing circumstances.

I seem to have recently developed the habit of one day entering people’s homes as a guest and by the next day being metamorphosed into an invalid. Yesterday morning I woke feeling slightly peculiar but went to the new Diplomatic Enclave before lunch – partly on business and partly to see its proliferation of modern architectural curiosities. Allergic as I am to most modern architecture, I must admit that some of these buildings are a joy to behold. At the wish of the Indian Government, most Diplomatic Missions to Delhi have built or are building new Embassies in a special area allotted for the purpose and I couldn’t help wondering if their general attractiveness was not partly due to the absence of older buildings near by. So often it’s the conflict presented by the juxtaposition of old and new structures that numbs one’s appreciation of contemporary design. But I wondered too if it was really necessary to expend such vast sums of money on such sumptuous Embassies in a country as poor as India is; on the part of socialist countries especially this seems an irrational acquiescence to the present violent contrast between wealth and poverty.

As I was cycling back to the Haddows’ at midday I was suddenly attacked by the most violent belly-ache I’ve ever suffered and during the afternoon I began to run a temperature. However, thanks to Mrs Haddow’s good care it was down again by midnight and the
bellyache
had also subsided, so I slept quite well. But today my temperature has been fluctuating and I’ve stayed in bed so I have nothing to report – a day in bed in New Delhi is like a day in bed anywhere else.

Later
. This evening I’ve been discussing my future plans with Mrs Haddow and we agree that cycling on the plains will have to be counted out between now and November. The spirit is willing
but
…! So tomorrow, with Mrs Haddow’s help, I shall look for some form of voluntary work here in India to keep me happy until Roz and I can get going again.

Total expenditure from 14 January 1963 to 8 July 1963 = £64 7s. 10d.

Dervla Murphy’s first book,
Full Tilt: From Ireland to India with a Bicycle
, was published in 1965. Over twenty other titles have followed, including an account of travels in Northern Ireland during the 1970s, a volume against nuclear power, a consideration of race relations in England during the 1980s and a highly-acclaimed autobiography,
Wheels Within Wheels
. Dervla has won worldwide praise for her writing and many awards, including the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.

Now in her early eighties, she continues to travel around the world, happily setting off to trek in remote mountains, and remains passionate about politics, conservation, bicycling and beer.

Dervla Murphy was born in 1931 in Co. Waterford, where she still lives when not travelling. Her daughter, Rachel, and three young granddaughters live in Italy and join Dervla on her travels when possible.