Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
an announcement of new members, an event attended by all those
who had applied for membership, and offering the humiliating
prospect of learning publicly whether or not you had been accepted.
Indians have scrupulously preserved the elite nature of these clubs,
the criteria for membership now being different, of course, but the
process of applying for it the same. Most of the British in India would
not have been considered eligible to join the great clubs; and now
that they're owned by Indians, most Indians aren't eligible to join
them, either.
Sitting with a beer, I watched this little-publicised other face of
India with fascination. Tall, handsome Sikhs with kerchiefs tied
over their topknots instead of turbans carried golf bags or sat
discussing the new trade regulations. Dignified men with patrician
noses came sweating from tennis courts, telling each other the latest
Delhi jokes. Wives in tracksuits joined their husbands, or sat with
friends, exchanging salacious gossip in between debating whether
IBM or Apple software systems would dominate the Indian
computer market. Two young Western girls, wilting in the heat,
wrote postcards at one table; at another, a bearded American ordered
breakfast for a family of five, reading a Hindi newspaper.
Sporadically, the thwack of a golf club rang out, usually followed
closely by cries of 'Drive!' or 'Bugger!' The country is not all poverty,
chaos and religion.
There was no mistaking Bob Wright. Even before I saw him, I
knew that the voice saying, 'Excellent stuff! We'll have you in the
Derby next, Bunty,' belonged to the legend himself.
As he's doubtless tired of hearing, he
does
resemble David Niven
playing some field marshal on his way to the Burmese front. Relaxed,
yet at the same time powerfully energetic, he was dressed in leisure
gear, with open-toed sandals. I watched him shift effortlessly from a
conversation with some industrial titan to a few words of
encouragement for a groundsman, his movements almost
choreographed, and the ubiquitous cigarette clenched like a pencil,
its smoke billowing through the immaculate moustache it has been
steadily dyeing yellow for many decades. Despite the clipped,
decisive tones of someone educated to run an empire, you can't
