Full Tilt

So far I haven’t noticed any of the dire poverty one expects in India; but then the Punjab is the country’s most prosperous state – partly because of its natural resources and partly because Sikhs are in general more on the ball than Hindus. An FAO official I met today told me that their work in the Punjab is much more productive than elsewhere in India because of greater and more intelligent co-operation from the locals.

But ten years ago it would have stirred more often and more vigorously; by now it seems to me that prosperity as the West knows it today and poverty on an Eastern scale are equally harmful to the soul of Man.

At last the monsoon seems to be breaking here. I saw my first electric storm this evening and it was a sight of such beauty that I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky for a moment. Then the rain came so forcefully that no one who hasn’t witnessed such a spectacle could imagine it; yet they tell me that this is only a curtain-raiser, not the real thing!

and my hostess very firmly took my shirt and pants and put them into the incinerator; they were long past being restored to cleanliness by any means known to mankind.

The way was level grassland and never did I think horses could move so fast

goes without saying

I was understandably anxious to photograph Roz at this historic point where, because of her owner’s mental unsoundness, she had become the first bicycle to cross the Babusar Pass;

I felt the thin air today, from about 9,000 feet, and had to stop every half-mile for a few minutes to calm my heart. (I also have a theory that being undernourished does not help.) From that altitude there was a big change in scene for the pine woods begin here with gigantic trees twice the height of any other pines I’ve seen.

d Gilgit on the skin of an onion is the best way to shed superfluous fat.

It’s such a strange sensation to touch things like paper and furniture and not feel them warm to the fingers and I can hardly believe that there’s no sweat dripping off me on to everything.