Bombay
I had intended to walk the few yards from the hotel to the "gateway to India" - a commemorative arch recalling the visit of George V and Queen Mary to India - but I gathered an entourage of tiny children, who would not go away even after the usual distribution of small change. One child was expertly patting my pockets to find out if there was more money in them, while another, more forthright still, had a hand burrowing into my trouser-pocket. I retreated, pursued to the doors of the hotel, refusing en-route offers to clean my shoes, change my money, or introduce me to some girls.
While admiring the Bay of Bombay from the lounge, I pondered the problem of the beggars, though without coming to any conclusion.
After a few days the most generous or wealthy person would realise the uselessness of indiscriminate charity, but it is difficult for a well-fed visitor to harden his heart. Leaving the hotel that morning with an American I had been shocked by a young man who was knocking on the taxi window with the stumps of his forearms. In a moment of revulsion, I thrust at him a rupee note which he nipped between his stumps and bore off, grinning with delight. The American told me that in one week, a compatriot of his had given away a hundred dollars.
"These people have so little," had been his excuse.
"But when you hand out money at that rate," said my companion, "you are tempting people to manufacture cripples, to cash in on their high earning ability."
Visitors from prosperous countries confronted by poverty and squalor, must at some stage hear the voice of their conscience, asking by what right they live so well. By an uneasy quibble I found myself glad that I was there on business and not for pleasure, although tourists bring urgently needed foreign exchange. The same illogical scruple prevented me, while I was in Calcutta, from taking a rickshaw for a short journey at rush-hour when no taxi was free.
I could not persuade myself to sit enthroned on a rickshaw, towed by a cadaverous barefoot Indian, sweat-rag in hand, trotting along on hot tarmac under a burning sun. If a rickshaw-man failed to eat, that evening, he was suffering for my principles.
And so, I walked. A young man fell into step and said: "You do not mind if a poor Indian boy speaks to you?" The sensible answer would be: "Yes!" - but it requires strength of mind beyond the normal to give it. As we walked, he told me that he was anxious to improve his knowledge of English; that he was saving up to become an engineer; that he was the sole support of a widowed mother and a family of brothers and sisters; that he strongly deplored the amount of begging that went on in India, and that he was always willing to accept a gift of a few rupees from a gentleman he had been privileged to guide back to his hotel. I could not resist a man to man approach of this sort and paid up. We then shook hands and parted with expressions of good will.
For religious and ethical reasons, India has a strong tendency towards abstinence from alcohol, although the position varies from State to State. In Calcutta there is one "dry" day each week; in New Delhi there appeared to be little restriction on drinks served to guests in hotel rooms, but in Bombay it is necessary for visitors from abroad to obtain a liquor licence.
This enables the holder to buy, at exorbitant prices, up to a bottle of spirits, or four bottles of wine, or twelve of beer, each week, and the main hotels have "Permit Rooms", open a few hours daily, where guests with permits may indulge their craving for alcohol. The Permit Rooms are very much like a normal cocktail lounge, but have a Police or Excise Officer on duty to ensure that the regulations are not broken without his knowledge. A good deal of form-filling is involved before a drink can he served and the final entry is on the visitor's permit to record the quantity of drink supplied each time and the cumulative total, rather like a bank statement except that there is no provision for overdrafts.
At one time, Indian residents of Maharashtra State could obtain a liquor permit against a doctor's certificate only, but there has been some relaxation and Indians over forty years old are now deemed to be capable of holding their drink like gentlemen and are granted permits.