Wild metal music in the streets of Hong Kong, electric screech of napalm, monks on fire, screaming horses. Nightly brawls in Central and Wanchai. People from all over the world roam the island, squaddies, sailors, bankers, spies, drug dealers, con artists, all kinds of adventurers looking for booze and trouble. 1967, Year of the Fire Sheep, the Age of Aquarius and Vietnam.
Fifty years later, he tells his son of his Hanoi adventure. It is unusual to hear stories from George’s past. Father and son aren’t close.
In his late teens and early twenties in Madras and Bombay, George aligns himself with the student communist movement. Years later, while working in Hong Kong, Raghavan, a friend from his days in Bombay, offers to arrange a visit to North Vietnam. (Journalists from Western publications aren’t allowed into the north.) Raghavan is a known communist and a correspondent for Blitz, the tabloid of the Indian independence movement. Unexpectedly, he’d accepted an invitation to George’s wedding and they’ve been in touch ever since.
“This was in 1972 or 1973,” George says. “Every journalist worth his salt wanted to get into Hanoi. They’d never have let me in, but Raghavan vouched for me. I have no idea why. We had our disagreements.”
“What about?”
“After Stalin and Mao, I cooled a little. He would talk about Che and I’d counter with Isaac Babel.” A bit of the old bounce returns to his voice. ‘
“He didn’t give in, neither did I.”
“You hit an impasse.”
“Actually, it was a huge surprise to hear from him.”
North Vietnam considers India a friendly nation, so the trip has to be arranged from Delhi. George flies in from Hong Kong and meets up with Raghavan. Together, they take an Air India flight to Hanoi. For the next few months, he files stories about what people say and what they wear, how they live, what they eat, how much or how little they sleep, stories about women as equal partners in the building of the nation, about sustainability and the environment before these topics become the fashion.
“What I wanted was to concoct a potted spiritual history.”
“Not sure what that means, spiritual history?”
“As in, describe how a material object, say a bowl of soup, or a hammock, or a wristwatch, might affect someone’s spirit.”
“Well, go on,” says his son, drawn in. It is as if, after a lifetime of silence, George has discovered conversation.
“Objects have an inner life acquired from the people to whom they’re attached. I thought it might be possible to describe a society by describing the things it uses, grand objects as well as humble ones, especially humble ones.’ He is talking about humility, but there is a hint of pride. ‘You can tell a lot by looking at a water canteen used by a soldier in a presidential motorcade. Or a small, propeller-driven airplane full of chickens and bicycles. If you study the way a pulverised bridge is rebuilt … Objects tell stories. I thought, if I found the right ones, I could recount…”
He stops and stares into the distance. Then he goes to the storeroom off the kitchen and his son follows. George looks into the drawers of half a dozen file cabinets in which he’s saved the documents and sundry keepsakes he brought back from his trips, as well as household materials, tax receipts, property papers. His son knows the cabinets well. He’s looked through them many times for clues to those years. The drawers are deep and crowded. George fishes out all kinds of things, examines them at length, then puts them back where he found them. Official invitations, photographs and postage stamps. Newspaper cuttings. Chopsticks, bowls and teapots. Coins and banknotes. An ornate buffalo-horn comb. He hands over shredded notebooks held together by thick rubber bands, some notes in a mixture of Malayalam and English. Some entries ticked, some not. When his son asks why, George says a tick indicates the note has been used in a report he filed. His son is dismayed at how many have never been used. George keeps searching and finds a peaked cap with a yellow star on the band, red and yellow silk flags, perfectly preserved, Ho Chi Minh propaganda posters, not so well preserved.
“Here it is,” he says, holding up a black-and-white photograph, a woman on a motorcycle looking into the camera.
“Who’s this?”
“Nguyen Phuc Chau, our manager on those trips.”
“I remember the name. It’s in your journals. A lot.”
“We wanted to see what it looked like, the border between south and north. Really difficult to get permission, but somehow she fixed it up. She told us to have a heavy breakfast. Long drive. We might not eat for a while. It turned out to be not difficult at all. I asked why she tried to frighten us. I honestly wanted to know. You know what she said?”
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“That’s how she was trained. From childhood. Always to be ready for disaster. The remark stayed with me, and even now I can recall the tone of voice in which she said it.”
There are clues to all this in George’s Vietnam notebooks. This passage in particular:
Left Hanoi 8 m. They sent 2 jeeps ahead – one with petrol, the other with 200 kgs worth of food including 100 bottles of beer and 1/2 doz baskets of live chickens. Wondered why this waste. But the wisdom of it dawned on me as we bumped our way from hazard to hazard on the way to the 17th Parallel.
At Ben Thuy ferry in Vinh got word that a pontoon bridge had been disrupted by storm. So turned back and stayed the night. Though capital, the city’s been badly crippled by bombing. Rather primitive living conditions at best guest house. Life revolved around a well from which you drew water.
About 11 next morning, got word bridge was open. But progressed hardly 30 km when we had to stop. It was out of commission again and 2 km of trucks had lined up. Heavy duty trucks laden with tyres, petrol in cans, boats, pigs, steel rails, crates of unknown goods.
After hrs of waiting at this causeway amidst paddy, we walked to the bridge, crossed it and found another jeep coming for us. Our manager Nguyen Phuc Chau had found a telephone – in that desolate paddy expanse she could get Hanoi and 17th Parallel towns in 10 or 15 minutes – contacted the administration in Ha Tinh and arranged for a pick-up.
She had said nothing of it, told us we’d have to walk 10 km to the nearest guest house near Ha Tinh – and that’s what Raghavan and I set out to do. When the jeep picked us up, I asked Nguyen Phuc Chau why she didn’t tell us it was coming. She said: to keep your morale high.
I’ve never seen Raghavan happier than in the midst of a ruined countryside among people who won’t accept ruin as their destiny.
Thanks to Nguyen Phuc Chau’s resolve we reached Ha Tinh guest house. From main road a dust track through marsh and paddy branched off through fields until we reached an enclave set amidst pine and banana trees. Why a guest house in this far-off place, I asked. This is one of our evacuation sites, said Nguyen Phuc Chau. Idyllic cluster of huts, overrun by frogs, resounding with the croak of crickets. The girls managing it greeted us with a warm “Chao Dong Chi” and gave a sumptuous dinner. But, for breakfast, no bread or even noodles. We were too cut off.
Excerpted with permission from The Elsewhereans: A Documentary Novel, Jeet Thayil, HarperCollins India.
