Delhi

The entire expedition was camped at Rabindra Rangshala site before spreading out over the length and breadth of India, in our case Jaipur. A processional drive with all the coaches was made through New Delhi and visits were made to, for example, Ghandi's tomb.

Don C: I remember vividly a wonderful air conditioned cafe we found which sold "iced coffee" - black coffee in a glass jar with a blob of icecream on top.

Gordon's letters

Jim Lindsay's diary:

23 August.

It took some time to adjust to our new role. The journey had given us plenty of challenges and we had developed a slightly piratical "every man's hand against us" way of behaving. Now we were to be cultural ambassadors radiating warmth and goodwill. The first new challenge was to negotiate the endless conversations. After the inevitable "What is your good name?" would come the same questions about how we liked Indian food, Indian weather, what did we do about marriage, how we liked our university and how easy would it be for an Indian student to study there. Since we were in a status-conscious society one of the regular questions to a young person was "What does your father do?" One of us (I think it was our new member Sandra, of whom more later) was asked at one stage what her father did. She tactfully explained that he was no longer alive. There was a short pause and then "What did he do before he died?"

The Rabindra Rangshala was a vast site accommodating as many cultural ambassadors from round India as there were Comexers, meaning about 1000 in all. A straight spine road ran from the entrance to a huge ceremonial arch, and beyond that was the auditorium. We lived in a vast tented village on the slope running gently up from the entrance, with the coaches parked in a line along the spine road. We were given passes that had to be waved at guards stationed at key points around the site.

We were provided with uniform six-person tents, each fitted with half a dozen lumpy charpoys, a fan, and a light bulb. Providing electricity was probably an ambitious mistake. There was a frightening explosion at a junction box one night and on a different night at least one tent was set alight by its fan or light fitting or both. The tents were designed more for free air movement than weather protection, as we found when the monsoon arrived. Don Winford's hand was now a very impressive sight. Luckily the swelling subsided over the next few days.

This was a day of formal events. First there was a reception in the auditorium, which covered two themes we already knew by heart - how clever we had been to drive all that way, and how important Commonwealth relations were. Then there was a ceremonial convoy culminated in a wreath-laying at Gandhi's tomb at Rajghat, followed by a bit of a scrum at the ice-lolly van at the outer gate. Oxford broke down on the return leg of the procession, much to our amusement. In the evening we were all assigned to cultural functions, and ours was at the YMCA. This was the first of many cultural exhibitions where we sat in rows in the dusk with the local middle classes while crows and bats went about their business overhead. We were treated to speeches, a lot of young women performing traditional dances, and in this case an awful film called "Glimpses of Maharashtra" evidently aimed at the American tourist market, which broke down several times.