Day 130, Allahabad [Thursday 10th April 2008]
Previous day: Day 129, Bodhgaya [Wednesday 9th April 2008]
Next day: Day 131, Varanasi [Friday 11th April 2008]
After a South Indian breakfast — no tea, only coffee! — we walk through the large central park in Allahabad. It's a bright, blazing hot day, and the park is clean and tidy. Flower beds line the clipped lawns.
We meet a couple of characters out for a stroll — a retired judge and his friend. The judge is a garrulous bloke with bright orange hennaed hair, t-shirt, shorts and some extremely sporty-looking trainers. He tells us of his trip to England long ago, and how he felt at home there, a kinship with the English. He says Allahabad is fast becoming a metropolis (Indians call their large cities such as Delhi and Mumbai 'metros'). His posting as a judge was in Varanasi, which, he says, he initially dismissed as rural, a village, and the people backwards. But after 2 years he came to appreciate the special nature of the place. We tell him we will probably only be there for 2 days!
He tells us while in allahabad not to miss Sangam, the meeting place of the Yamuna and Ganga rivers. We tell him we are on the way to the family home of India's great Prime Minister Jawaharlas Nehru.
"He was many things, but not great," says the judge. He goes on to blame him for Partition. The reason he gives is startling — it was a cover up, he says, for his alleged infidelities with Lady Edwina Mountbatten.
"His first mistake was Edwina Mountbatten. It is an open secret. The Viceroy knew of their affection and blackmailed Nehru into Partition. His secons mistake was appeasement of China."
And the constitution, I ask? (It is the longest, most comprehensive such document in the world)
"It is a compromise. The best bits plucked form Constitutions around the world. I have worked with it all my life."
We carry on towards Anand Bhavan — it means "House of Joy" — the family home of the Nehru family, India's de facto ruling dynasty since Independence. As we pass through the gates we are greeted by an astonishing sight. Behind us the rickshaws and cars beep and clamour, screech and ding their bells. But before us all is calm. Sat in wide, clipped lawns the Nehru family home rises serenely, duck egg blue, its colonial turrets and verandas overlooking picnickers dotted around the grass.
It's a beautiful house, and superbly well kept. Photos show the preserved rooms as they once were, full of early Congress party meetings. Gandhi sits on a cushion in front of shelves full of books, which remain in place today. Here is the room of Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, adjoining her father Jawaharlal Nehru's, connected by a door. Her is the wide, wooden balcony where Gandhi often worked, and the simple room he stayed in. There is a huge drawing room filled with cane furniture, ceiling fans and fresh flowers. A separate parlour is where early Congress strategies were formed.
It's a mansion, really, and shows explicitly how wealthy the Nehru family were. One photo shows Motilal Nehru driving a car — the first one on the whole of Allahabad! Postcards show the family's whimsical side. "Bonjour!" writes Indira from Switzerland. "Don't forget to write,' says her father in another.
India's first Prime Minister seems to be a complex man. Given his Hindu sacred thread ceremony at a young age, this high caste man became an avowed atheist in later life. He relinquished his exquisitely tailored Edwardian era British suits and instead dressed in traditional Indian clothes. Among his posessions on display at the house are a cigarette holder, an electric iron and a portable cotton spinning wheel. In his will he asked that his death not be accompanied by any religious ceremony, but instead that his ashes be flown high in a plane and thrown out to mingle with the land and the peasants of India. I'm looking forward to reading his autobiography.
In the evening we get a rickshaw out to Sangam, where the Yamuna and Ganges rivers meet. On thw way we pass the vast Mela grounds which, every 12 years, host millions of pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela. Music drifts across the air. We see several emaciated sadhus wandering the bare earth.
Eventually we arrive at the Ganga, her wide, dry banks spreading far on either side of a thin, pale strand of water. Boats cluster at the meeting point of the two water systems as the sun slowly sets. We walk westwards around one of Emporer Akbar's forts, to Nehru Ghat, stopping for a cold drink and then getting a rickshaw back to Civil Lines. This journey takes us directly through what Mark Twain called 'Godville". Dozens of temples and shrines line the narrow alleyways here, their bells ringing, lights flashing, music blaring, flowers strewn everywhere. Cycle rickshaws hustle trough the tiniest gaps, market stalls crowd the passageways. It's all in stark contrast to the Civil Lines' clean, wide avenues!
Next day: Day 131, Varanasi [Friday 11th April 2008]
Previous day: Day 129, Bodhgaya [Wednesday 9th April 2008]