Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
by their voter-subjects with overwhelming majorities in no-contest
races. The simple fact, however, is that the princes and nawabs often
did far more for their subjects and kingdoms than the new
government can now that the wealth is more evenly spread. And
memories in India are long.
Bentley adamantly refused to move from the cool gloom of his
mausoleum. I asked Hoppy what he thought could be done. Our
schedule was tight: we needed to ride on if we were to make camp
by nightfall. Eventually it was decided that one cameleer would
ride back to the city and arrange a Land Rover to pick up Bentley -
to cremate him, to take him to hospital, or, if he was up to it, to drive
him out to meet us.
I felt dreadful about leaving him in a cenotaph, of all places, but
I was certain, having had my unfair share of 'Delhi bellies' in the
past, that he'd soon recover. He was just at that stage where death
and recovery are all one: whatever it took to stop the agony would
have been perfectly acceptable to him.
Name: Boodul. Age: 25. Caste: Chuttry.
Date of burning: 4 August 1822.
Remarks: The woman burnt along with the corpse of her husband.
She had only one child, a girl 13 years old, well provided for, and
she was not pregnant. The chief and other police officers were
present and I myself saw and spoke to her a few hours before the
sacrifice. There was no legal impediment to her being burnt . . .
- Extract from official British records from a
sati
And so I went off with Hoppy. Weaving through the primeval
landscape, I had the oddly comforting sensation of having been there
before, and in less tranquil times. Vivid images of violent battles
fought in the swirling dust kept flooding my mind: the screams of
wounded camels, the thunder of another charge, the clash of swords,
the bloodcurdling howls and groans of the wounded, horns blowing,
horses rearing, commanders yelling orders through biting clouds of
sand. It was all so clear that it could have been happening around me
in some other dimension. Perhaps time was an illusion, and
