Metro Infanta Foundation

By Rudy A. Arizala

Below is a piece of long ago. When New Delhi and India are not yet as developed and progressive as they are today. When semi-precious stones are sold Tibetan refugess on sidewalks of city streets near hotels. There were no shopping malls except the stores and bazaars around Connaught Place or Circle. When there were no 5-star hotels yet in the Capital City of New Delhi except the "Imperial Hotel" along Janpath Road near the Philippine Embassy at Thapar House. When I was just starting my diplomatic career, the lowest ranking Filipino officer as Asst. Attache of the Embassy. When only rich Filipinos, scholars, Filipino musicians on contract and public officials could travel abroad, there being no Overseas Filipinos Workers yet during those days. When means of air travel are not yet on fast, high flying "Jumbo" jet planes, but on twin-engine propeller -driven planes.

You may consider it the "romantic side" of a young, budding, bachelor inexperienced Pinoy diplomat.

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INDIA INTERLUDE
Jade stone, Snake.-charmer and Taj Majal)

16 September 2007

I. Old Notebooks

The other day while rummaging over the files on my bookshelves, I chanced upon an old notebook of mine. It was the first notebook I brought with me from Manila during my first travel abroad in connection with my foreign assignment.-in New Delhi.

Leafing over its pages now yellow with age and the letters are now somewhat blurred with age but still readable, ( I wrote said notes in 1959), the following memories returned like haunting ghosts of the past.

I was then a budding young lawyer-diplomat at the Philippine Embassy in New Delhi. Being the youngest and unmarried Filipino staff member, aside from my duties on legal matters and as private secretary to the Ambassador, whenever there are visitors or tourists from the Philippines, I was the one made by the Ambassador to meet and see them off at the airport. Also, to act as tourist guide for them in New Delhi as well as in travel to places outside the capital city of India such as Agra where the world-famous temple of love "Taj Majal" is located and Benares City where the sacred waters of the Ganges river pass through. Benares City is a place for religious pilgrimage among Hindus where they bathe themselves at least once a year to cleanse themselves of sins. Benares is also noted for its beautiful silk shawls or veils which women love to wear or cover their head and face.

My old notebooks also recall to mind when I accompanied a Filipina mother and her two young pretty daughters from a prominent family in Manila visited the touristic spots in New Delhi as well as in Old Delhi (some 4 kms. Away) where the "Red Fort", an old Muslim palace, is located along the banks of the Yamuna river. So, I wrote home in the Phiippines that members of a prominent family from Manila on their way to London recently made a stopover in India and I was their tourist guide. The mother was accompanying her two pretty young daughters to London where they were going to study further. They graduated from an exclusive convent school for girls in Manila.

My horizon is starting to widen by meeting prominent and important people from the Philippines. After touring New Delhi, our Embassy Administrative Officer invited them to have lunch at Imperial Hotel restaurant near the Philippine Embassy. They invited me to join them also.

At the Imperial Hotel restaurant, there is a Filipino Band or Orchestra which provides music during lunch time. The same Filipino Orchestra provides music at the Tavern Inn, a restaurant of Imperial Hotel which is open at night from Monday to Saturday where one could not only have dinner but also dance and witness a "floor show." When the band leader learned that our guests for lunch were from the Philippines, they started playing Filipino music, much to the delight of our guests. They also played some old English songs among them "Over the Rainbow," with the haunting lyrics sung by the Filipina vocalist part of it goes like this: "Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue / And the dreams that you dare to dream / Really do come true. . ." The youngest daughter commented "That´s a lovely old sweet song."

During lunch the mother asked me some personal questions such as where I came from in the Philippines; what college degree I finished and whether I am married, Because of the answers given her I earned from her a new designation - "the boy Embassy lawyer." She then started addressing me "hijo" and asked the Embassy Administrative Officer if I could be excused from my job at the Office the next day so that I could accompany them in their trip to Agra City, a six-hour drive from New Delhi to see the world famous Taj Majal.

After lunch, the mother and her elder daughter said they would go upstairs to their hotel room to rest. However, the younger daughter, told her mother she would like to go out for a walk at a side street near the hotel where sidewalk vendors hawk their wares, mostly souvenir items for tourists. The mother agreed and requested me to accompany her daughter but to return on time for the late afternoon tea.

So, off we went for our after lunch souvenir shopping. The semi-precious stones being sold by a Tibetan woman with a small baby in her arms caught her fancy. She picked out a semi-polished jade stone and examined it meticulously. I told the Tibetan woman I would buy the jade stone as a good luck charm for my girl companion. She insisted on paying for it, but the Tibetan woman said to her in halting or broken English; "Miss, accept gift, give you good luck." And so with hesitation but gratefully she accepted the jade stone uttering almost in whispers: "Thank You."

Then we went window shopping at nearby Connaught Circle two or three blocks away from the hotel stopping at Gaylord Coffee Shop for a cup of tea and some Indian sweets wrapped in tinfoils. Gaylord is the favorite meeting place of Delhi University male students and girls from Lady Harding College. Like any other young teenagers or students, they love to have refreshments and dance to the music provided by an Anglo-Indian band which plays modern pieces. We danced a few steps of "Cha-cha" and "Rock N´ Roll" then we went back to the hotel and found her mother and elder sister already taking their "merienda" (cup of tea "English style" and some cookies) at a verandah of the hotel overlooking a flowering garden. The mother greeted us with a question: "Where did the two of you go?" And like an excited child who discovered something new, she narrated to her mother our experience with the Tibetan woman selling semi-precious stones and our sampling of the Indian sweets wrapped in tinfoils at Gaylord Coffee Shop in Connaught Place where an Anglo Indian Orchestra provides music to the late afternoon "happy hours" of Delhi University students.

The next morning, I accompanied them to Agra City. As in New Delhi, I became their tourist guide in Agra City as well as while visiting the Taj Majal. On our way back to New Delhi, we stopped at a small village along the trunk road where a snake charmer displayed his ability to make a bunch of cobra come out of his bamboo basket with their heads swaying as if in unison with the musical notes coming from his bamboo flute. When they left New Delhi to continue their trip to London, I was requested by the Ambassador to see them off at the airport. We bade goodbyes at each other. Nothing is left except memories.

II. Playful Memories

Memories are sometimes like playful ghosts of the past which come unexpectedly and suddenly reminding you of events beautiful and sad. All what you could do is either smile or sigh, trying to vanish those ghosts of the past, but the more you try, the more it becomes clearer like the first golden light of dawn streaking against the eastern sky, refusing to disappear behind the inner darkness of your soul.

Judith B. Evans wrote in her poem "Comes the Dawn," the inevitable truth that "After a while, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and claiming a soul, And loving does´nt mean leaning and company is not security.. . . After a while you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child."

And finally, as the ghosts of the past memories vanish, "You learn that with every good-bye comes the dawn."

Wonder, what became of her. I remember her sad melancholy eyes but lits up like that of a child whenever I crack jokes with her while we were visiting the Red Fort in Old Delhi, or I narrate to her while at Taj Majal that such magnificient temple was built by a young lover prince for beauteous Mumtaz Majal. And I could see still the horror on her face when I told her that along the sacred holy Ganges river in Benares near Agra City, are funeral pyres where the dead Hindus are cremated while other believers bathe in the river to cleanse themselves of their sins. And I could still feel her arms when she innocently cling on me as if for protection while we stopped along the way from Agra Ctiy back to New Delhi at a small village where there was a snake-charmer making a bunch of cobras come out from his bamboo basket seemingly fascinated by the music coming out from his bamboo flute.

I hope she has a very happy and blessed life which she richly deserved. What happened to the unmounted dark green jade stone as a good luck charm from an old Tibetan woman in New Delhi? I hope it really gave her good luck and made her dreams come true as in the old song "Over the Rainbow" which says: "Somewhere over the rainbow / Skies are blue / And the dreams that you dream to dream / Really do come true. . ."