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Walter Haan India 2 PC Volunteer returns to India 43 Years Later
My two daughters, Sarah and Emily, their husbands Andy and Stel, and I flew into Delhi, India early on the morning of February 17th. The real purpose of the trip: to go back to Allahabad where I lived and worked for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer as part of India 2, September 1962 - July 1964.
When we got back to the hotel from Agra late our second night in Delhi, we learned that terrorists had blown up several cars of an Indian train heading towards Pakistan that day, killing 70 people. The terrorists had boarded their train at the Old Delhi station, which we were departing from the next morning.
The train trip to Allahabad was supposed to be about 10 hours but took
12 hours. We went during the day on purpose to see the Indian
countryside. The train was filled with Indian troops patrolling the
cars, obviously because of the bombing the previous day. My daughter
Emily was hit in the head by a soldier's rifle muzzle as he turned
around. It was an accident and he apologized profusely. We traveled
second class, air conditioned. Trip cost about $25 each, each way.
I was received at my old school in Allahabad as if I'd never been away. They had no advance warning I was coming; the letter I sent in January evidently went astray and I couldn't call the school from our hotel. It had no phone directories because it isn't hooked into the local phone system. Twenty million people had descended on the city to bathe in the Ganges River for the Magh Mela at the same time we were there.
I had trouble finding a phone directory in shop/stalls on Mohatma Gandhi Marg. But a bookseller had one, looked the school up, gave me the number and then said: "Wait, let me try it for you." The recorded announcement said that the school's phone was disconnected.
We went in a car hired by the hotel the next morning expecting to find nothing. But there the school was, formerly all alone in a field, reached by a lonely road with no buildings, now surrounded by buildings. The road was now built up from downtown Allahabad all the way to the school.
Some instructors were sitting on the front steps as our car pulled up.
I got out and said who I was and they knew all about me: "We've heard all the stories about you." We were taken to a retired colleague of mine in his home in the school faculty housing. Then we were given a royal tour of the school once it was explained that it was not as it once was. Because it loses power daily, it can't run its printing equipment and computers in the middle of the day.
The electric power in Allahabad went off throughout the city, not just at the school, at 10 am and kicked back on about 2 pm. At our hotel, about a minute after the power went off, the hotel generator kicked on. Some of the shops have generators, most don't. I bought a 5' x 8' foot rug at the U.P. Handicraft Emporium practically in the dark because the shop had no power. The city didn't have that problem in 1962-1964.
They packed the rug well for me and I brought it home in my luggage. I
had always wanted a Mirzapur rug, made not too far from Allahabad, but couldn't afford it when I lived there as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The handmade woolen rug cost $292. There are about 44 Rupees to the dollar now. In my day 44 years ago, it was 5 to the dollar.
We had several colleagues and their families to lunch and dinner at the hotel. My daughters Sarah and Emily were given saris by two colleagues of mine. And we were taken out for lunch several times. Originally we planned to stay in Allahabad for only 4 days, 5 nights, but extended it to 6 days, 7 nights. Now I'm in touch by email and phone with K.R. Bahadur, the senior teacher when I taught there. He's now 78.
My old friends didn't recognize me. Besides calling me fatty, they called me bossy and told me that I had been called the boy when I taught there. I weighed about 110 pounds as a PC volunteer for most of my time there after losing 35 pounds within three months of my arrival in 1962. I now weigh 195.
I was called bossy because at one lunch I took charge of the seating,
trying to prevent all the Indians sitting on one side of the table and
the Americans on the other, looking like we were signing a treaty. So
at the next lunch it was announced that I was too bossy and everyone
could sit where they wanted!
Allahabad is the home of the state High Court and my daughter Sarah (a lawyer) wanted to see it. My colleague Bahadur has a nephew who is a lawyer there and we were invited over to see it in action. At the court, the nephew exclaimed to me, "I remember you." His assistants took us on the tour, including into 3 courtrooms in session. In one courtroom, a young advocate (lawyer) leaned in close to me to say: "You're really in a British court."
We also went to a flower show in Allahabad's old Company Garden and Khusra Bagh where three important Muslim tombs are located. We attracted friendly crowds wherever we went, especially my attractive daughters Sarah and Emily.
I had ridden around both of those gardens on my bicycle with students
when I lived there 44 years ago. On this trip people would come alongside and ask where were we from. I first said America but they didn't understand that. So I'd say USA and they'd all reply: "USA, good country!"
My kids took cycle rickshaws to the Sangam, site of the Magh Mela on
our last day in Allahabad. The fair was mostly over by then. Sarah and
Andy's rickshaw was charged by a running bull and the rickshaw wallah attempted to jump off the rickshaw to escape. Andy stopped him and told him to keep pedaling. They made their escape.
On our way back to Delhi by train, at Kanpur, where the train stopped for 8 minutes, one of my students from 1962-1964 met us on the platform with his wife and gave us all a wonderful lunch to eat on the train.
Back in Delhi for four more days, I did some shopping. At one shop, I had difficulty adjusting my packages and money and apologized to the clerk for holding things up. He replied, "That's okay, you are a senior citizen." And everyone laughed.
We flew home early March 3rd. The temperature was about 83 degrees and very comfortable when we were there. It's about 116 now in Allahabad (This was written in May).
Walter Haan
India 2 RPCV
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