We had hired a car for our journey to Durgapur, two days later. The driver had brought his brother-in-law and a friend, for company, but my colleague would not stand for this and the friend was discarded at a convenient point. Across the Ganges and out into the countryside we journeyed for eighty miles through dusty land, shimmering in the heat. We spent the day at Durgapur Steel Works and in the late afternoon set off, back to Calcutta. The heat was stifling; my colleague had dozed off; so too had the brother-in-law, and the car seemed to be going ever more slowly across the plain, but at first, I was not sure of this, as the speedometer was not functioning. Then I saw the driver's head pitch forward. He, too, was falling asleep and I leaned over, ready to take charge of the steering. Just at that moment, one of the tyres burst, and the bump and swerve woke the driver and our companions. The tyre was quite bald and in ten minutes they had replaced it with another, equally bald. Probably the extreme heat of the road was in part responsible, because a few miles further on, the spare tyre just fitted, also burst.
After my colleague had told the driver what he thought of him, he and his brother-in-law set off towards a village, trundling a wheel, while my friend and I waited and drank two bottles of lemonade which I had brought in my briefcase. Hot lemonade is not pleasant but helps to ward off dehydration.
It was dark before we were mobile again and the driver, in a furious temper, drove like a madman through the outskirts of Calcutta, among milling pedestrians, taxis, cars, carts, animals and rickshaws. Several times my friend told the driver to slow down, but he was beyond the reach of reason. Incredibly, we reached the hotel without accident. I was too late to get anything in the restaurant apart from tepid mulligatawny soup, followed by soggy rice and curried mutton, so-called, which was more probably part of the water-buffalo I had seen that morning on a cart, being pulled by the Indians it should have been pulling - the treacherous beast had died.
I wanted to post a letter and some cards but it was Saturday afternoon, there was no mail collection from the hotel until Monday and I decided to walk gently to the Post Office a few hundred yards away. Inside, I looked around to see where stamps were sold and was instantly taken under the protection of an Indian employee of the Office. I was glad of his help; posting a letter turned out to be unexpectedly complicated. First, he waited in line for a chance to weigh the letter, then reported this information at a counter where a clerk told him how much it would cost. After collecting money from me, he queued to buy the stamps and next took his turn to stick his finger into a dirty jar of dirtier glue, which he smeared over the envelope and cards as the stamps did not carry enough adhesive, and the "By Airmail" notices, none at all.
I was very glad I had not had to dip my finger in the gluepot and decided that I would give him a tip, in addition to the change from the stamp money, which I knew I would never see again. After waiting to have the mail franked, it was only necessary for him to post it, and the whole job was done, in considerably under an hour.
During the course of this tour, something like half a dozen letters failed to arrive at their destinations, but I was surprised that the number was not greater in view of the arrangements at many hotels. Often, guests' letters are handled by a shop in the hotel and the guest hands over the letter and money, without any guarantee that the one is ever applied to the other. Perhaps a strong-minded character might ask to see the stamps stuck on, but they can be removed and re-used by the attendant, rightly indignant at such an implied slur on his honesty and integrity.