The writer and the tramp

Oh, to be in England, now that summer's here! And to be in Oxford, with its medieval charm, is surely heaven. Not this year though, becaus...

Oh, to be in England, now that summer8217;s here! And to be in Oxford, with its medieval charm, is surely heaven. Not this year though, because it wasn8217;t quite the English summer the British would die for. It rained rather too often 8212; so often that even the English were embarrassed. Most disconsolate was the boatman at Folly Bridge, waiting for the elusive punters forced indoors. Even for me it was an unusual summer. Quite revelatory.

As it was for a group of American students. Like most Indians, I had always assumed that the American youth were uniformly permissive. But mid-westerners, I discovered, are actually as prudish and conservative as any small-town Indian. Asked to write on an example of unnatural behaviour in Europe, they all raved about the open display of affection around them.

An accompanying American creative writing professor exploded a few more myths for me. Fiftyish Patricia Henley8217;s first novelAtilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3; Hummingbird House was a National Book Award finalist. It is devoid of froth and frivolity, reading like vintage Hemingway. And it8217;s set against the background of not bubblegum America, but the revolution in Guatemala. The blood, pain and strife is mirrored through the eyes of an American midwife. Henley made five trips to Guatemala to research the book and seven years to complete it. But for someone whose dominant influences were Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, the book was a kind of catharsis. As she said, quot;I wanted to bring people to the truth through a story.quot; New York publishers, however, felt it would be impossible for them to market the book.

Henley came of age during the Vietnam war and her next novel is woven, fittingly, around a couple of Americans whose lives were impacted by the war. She is an American sensitised by a childhood of deprivation and poverty, part of it spent in a foster home. The magnificent castles which dot the English landscape actually saddened rather than delighted her.

On my second last day in Oxford, I had the ultimate cultural experience: I was mugged while dialling from an open phone booth in the heart of town. A near bald youth dressed all in black grabbed my purse and umbrella from behind. I screamed and managed to retrieve my umbrella. But he took off with my purse, with me in hot, and somewhat reckless, pursuit. Given my poor physical condition, he outran me in seconds. Later my brother-in-law and I scoured every garbage bin in the vicinity in vain.

We walked to the Thames Valley police station to register a complaint. As we were leaving the premises, two constables walked in and called out, quot;Ms Singh.quot; I wheeled around only to find them proferring my purse. How had this little miracle occurred? A good samaritan had telephoned the police just two minutes after I was robbed, offered to be a witness and informed them that quot;the aggrieved has gone in pursuitquot;. The cops swung into action immediately. Flustered by my bloodcurdling shrieks, the youth extracted my credit card, a wad of Indian rupees and 35 pounds, and flung the purse in a church compound. The good vicar found it and called the police.

While cracking a joke a minute, the efficient Constable Buckle informed us that serene Oxford was gripped by a serious heroin problem. He even dialled Delhi to cancel my credit card. Apparently, a colleague and he had been cruising the streets for the past one hour, hunting for a distraught lady.

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We parted happily and proceeded for dinner. Just as we were tucking into our lasagna, my sister8217;s mobile rang insistently. And voila, it was Constable Buckle on the line. He had arrested the mugger strolling down the same street, and recovered all my Indian money. A tramp had tipped off the cops about a man trying desperately to exchange quot;these strange looking notesquot;.

P.S. I just got a note from the court in Oxford informing me that the case has been decided and the culprit fined. In one week?