Bloody Walter, man

Bundi, Monday 4 March 2013

When I think of the British legacy in India, there are quite a few things that spring to my mind, from the railways and bureaucracy, to buildings, churches and hill stations, as I mentioned before. But far from being just past history and static monuments from a different era, it continues to be a living legacy - alive particularly in many of the older generation of Indians. 

One such person was Walter Aubert. I arranged to do a one-day trek from the highest point on the Mount Abu plateau, which is also the highest point in Rajasthan, meandering across the plateau through various villages, to descend off its furthermost nose. This time, it was 'Charles' leading the trek (as recommended by Lonely Planet!). His real name is Indian, but everyone knows him as Charles. He'd arranged this particular route for two of his friends, and I joined in along with a Canadian couple who were staying at my hotel.

These two friends of Charles's were men in their sixties, lifelong friends of each other - Walter and 'Eddy'. Although from Mount Abu originally, they'd both moved away. Walter seemed to have moved back fairly recently, from Goa, while Eddy was back visiting. They were of a rare old breed - native English speakers for whom Hindi was a learned second language. But their English is not exactly the English of English village greens and cricket fields (any more than mine is, I suppose!). Listening to them talking at first, I could tell they weren't speaking English as a second language. Their fluency was too good for that. Their accent was strong and unmistakably Indian, but their turn of phrase, their ease in the language, their quickness of speech, their idioms - and their swearing - were those of a native speaker. It had me a bit confused at first. 

But I soon got the explanation as we wandered along the trail together. They were Catholics, had gone to Catholic school, taught in English, and were raised speaking only English at home. In fact, it wasn't until Walter went to work for the government telegraph office that he figured he'd better learn this Hindi business. Raised outside the Hindu religion, their culture is clearly different, too. With the ease of familiarity, they teased Charles about all his millions of 'bloody' gods. 

'No time for all that shit,' Walter affirmed, with jocular irreverence. In fact, over the fourteen hours we'd spend together that day, I'd come to see that the two of them were beautifully irreverent about a lot of what makes up modern-day India, as though viewing it all with the objectivity of outsiders, which, I suppose, in some way they are... neither typically Indian, nor typically English.

We stopped for lunch in a clearing surrounded by sloping hills, with a big flat granite rock formation serving as our work surface and table for preparing and eating our food. Charles dished us out our various jobs. Casey, the Canadian woman, was to help him chop vegetables; her husband and I were to gather firewood, and Walter and Eddy were to provide a running commentary on the whole affair, like Waldorf and Stadtler from The Muppet Show. 

'Look at that, Walter,' Eddy mused, looking at me, busily picking up sticks and bringing them back to the fire pit. 'See how the British get on and get the job done.'

'Yes, while the bloody Indians sit on their asses!' I retorted, pointing at the two of them, laughing. 'In fact, why is it all us white people who are doing the work?!'

Anyway, we got the fire lit while Walter attempted to eat one of the small wild oranges growing on a tree in the clearing. He screwed his face up at their bitterness, and offered me a bit. I couldn't have eaten a whole one, but a few segments were great.

'Only the bloody British could eat a lemon!' Eddy quipped, as I did so.

Charles finally got a bit of work out of the two of them, opening cans of mushrooms and baby sweetcorn. 

'Wonder what the juice tastes like,' Eddy said, as he ran a can opener around the mushroom tin. 

'Bloody brine, man,' Walter replied.

'Why not try it? We eat the things in it. What's the difference?' Eddy tipped up the tin and poured some of the brine into his mouth from a height. It dribbled down his chin, as he nodded approvingly.

'It's OK. Give it a try, Walter.'

Walter wasn't having any of it, literally, but Eddy approached him, holding the tin above his head. Walter put out his arm to ward him off.

'Don't do that, boy!' he said, laughing. 'Don't do that, boy!'

It was the 'boy' of the English cricket game, with the 'oy' spoken in a clipped and rounded way. I laughed at the two of them larking about and their funny turns of phrase.

Charles was completely intrigued by the large round tin of pork luncheon meat that Walter and Eddy had brought with them, repeating that he'd never seen such a thing before. Walter explained he'd bought it directly from the factory in Goa, where he'd also had a house until recently. They were having trouble opening the tins, and Walter explained he'd never cooked anything - he had a cook.

'How do they make it?' Charles asked.

'What d'you mean how do they make it? The pigs go in one end and the tins come out the other! What the bloody hell you think!' Walter and Eddy laughed.

'How you want to cook it?' Charles asked them. 

'Just put the tin in the fire and warm it up. It's already cooked,' they told him. 

Charles scratched his head at the idea. 

'You don't want any salt, any spices?'

'No, it's bloody salty enough, man! Just put it on the fire! It'll heat in its own fat.'

'I've never seen such a thing,' Charles said again, plonking it into the burning sticks.

Charles asked me to help him add some spices to the vegetables that he and Casey had chopped, and which were now bundled up in a few packages of tin foil. The little measures of spices were wrapped up in bits of newspaper. I unravelled one after another: cumin seeds, turmeric, ground coriander, chili powder. He scattered various combinations over the chopped green peppers, onions, baby sweetcorn. He'd heated some butter in a pan, and, pouring some onto the veg, he sealing up the foil parcels and placed them onto the fire. The mushrooms and some onions went into the pan with the remaining butter and a selection of spices, and that, too, went onto the fire.  

Walter and Eddy weren't the patient type.

'Why didn't we just bring some sandwiches?' Walter asked. 'My cook could have packed us up a great picnic.'

Charles was affronted. 

'Never have I brought sandwiches,' he said. 'Always I cook a proper lunch.'

'Is it ready, man?'

'Ten minutes.'

A pause.

'You're a great guide, man, but a bloody slow cook!'

When the mushrooms and onions, and the veg in the parcels had softened amidst their flavoursome buttery juice, Charles lifted it all out onto our slabby table, and we enjoyed it with chapatis, which Walter and Eddy supplemented with white loaf and luncheon meat sandwiches.

For dessert, Charles had slit some bananas, slid in some chocolate and roasted them in tin foil on the fire. He handed them out to us all. Walter opened his parcel with a hesitant look.

'What is this, man?'

'Banana. Delicious.'

With the gooey banana revealed to the full, Walter peered at it disdainfully, before trying a bit.

'Never seen such a thing in my life,' he said. 'Never in my life have I seen the like of it'.

We laughed at his bewilderment at this camping classic.

But he ate the lot, shaking his head.

Despite being from Mount Abu, Walter had never really been trekking before in the amazing hills on his doorstep. His footwear - very light-soled trainers - weren't really up to the task, and, dear help him, he was struggling on the long descent down. No complaint did he utter, though - he just got on with it. Every ten minutes, Charles would reassure him that it was only another ten minutes to go!

Eventually we got down to the waiting jeep, and Walter eased into the front seat like a happy man staggering into an oasis in the desert. It'd be more than an hour's journey back to the town of Mount Abu, along the bottom of the mountain, through the fields and past the low-land farmers, before winding our way up and up the road leading back to the top again.  

'Stop for some whiskey, man,' Walter said, and the driver pulled up at a cluster of roadside stalls - including one called the English Liquor and Wine Store. All alcohol stands, I notice, have 'English' in the title. All depravity clearly comes from abroad. Walter and Eddy gave the driver their instructions for what brand they wanted.
'And get me one of those cranberry things for the road,' Walter said. The driver was drawing a blank, and a discussion ensued in Hindi, after which the driver crossed the road to the liquor store, with Walter's money in his hand.
'He didn't bloody know what a cranberry is,' he explained to me and the Canadians, 'and I can't remember the name of the thing... cranberry something.'
'Breezer,' one of the Canadians said.
'Breezer! That's it.'
He got out of the front seat and onto the ground, to stretch his sore legs and test his tender feet. Meanwhile, Charles, who'd gone off to buy some water and an ice-cream, jumped back into the double front seat, but Walter quickly had enough of standing up and chastised him: 'Let me bloody in, man, before I *%&ing faint,' he said, as Charles slid hastily over, laughing.

I didn't think I'd see Bloody Walter again after we dropped him and Eddy off at Eddy's hotel. But I wandered down to the hotel where Charles operates out of the next day, to pay him for the trek, and Walter and Eddy showed up. It was great to sit down and while away an hour or so chatting to them over some chai. Charles was telling us about a business idea he had, and said he was going to run it by his astrologer.
'What bloody superstitious shit is this, man?' Walter asked, disparagingly. 'That's what's wrong with this country!'

Charles laughed, but he described how his astrologer had helped him make sense of a series of unfortunate incidents he'd had over the past number of years. Many Hindus use the services of an astrologer, with a reading based on their date and time of birth. In fact, a baby's first astrology reading is one of the big occasions after its birth.

Regardless, Walter was having none of it.

I was to see him once more before I left Mount Abu. The day after our astrology discussion, I'd been out for a half-day trek with Ashok, the guide whose family own my hotel, and we were heading into an ayurvedic herbal place on our way back so that I could pick up a few lotions and potions, when who pulled in on his scooter only Walter. He'd steeled himself for another walk - a shorter one this time - and the Canadians had joined them. Having survived the stroll, they were about to have a drink up the road, but he'd popped back to town to drop off his niece, I think he said it was. And with a put-put-put of his scooter he was gone.

The last of the Raj... the legacy of the British, incarnate.