Delhi, Monday

The Jammu Mail. We share our 4-berth first class compartment with a couple of army types, one of whom loudly sniffs every minute or so so I must exercise maximum Buddhist karma and not offer him a hanky. Mercifully the sniffer leaves a couple of hours down the line, but the other is a throat-clearer, even worse than me.  Happily, no-one snores.  So our night is relatively peaceful, even comfortable. Despite a very late departure, we arrive on time at 5.45 am. Our tuk-tuk driver follows a maze of back streets through awakening markets and rickshaw parks, and we reach the Surya Plaza by 6.30 am. They obligingly give us a back room for a couple of hours until our balcony room, this time as booked, is ready. We shower coolly, and I try out my Dabur Red toothpaste, which leaves a burning sensation, my mouth looking if I have been chewing paan (or playing Dracula).
 

Anglican Church St. James

I make an excursion to Kashmir Gate in the part of Old Delhi favoured by the British community in the years before the 1857 uprising (aka Indian Mutiny). An archaeology department official lets me climb up on what remains of the medieval gate and walls, but seems disappointed with my (I thought quite generous!) baksheesh. Then down a hectic road to St. James's Church, in a lush green setting behind railings, a stark contrast to the surrounding turmoil. St. James was commissioned by Col. George Skinner, progeny of a E. India Company official and a Rajput princess, whose story is a book in itself. The church, built 1836, is a classical gem, elegant and dignified outside but a little uptight and gloomy within (possibly like its worshippers?) It's peaceful in here. I am the only visitor, indeed the first to sign the visitors' book for five days. An Indian has written, "I am visiting places of worship in Delhi and come here to see what a church is like." A  list names the 193 church members (many presumably Anglo-Indian, like Mr Vijay Russell and Mr & Mrs Ravi George, plus a couple of Skinners), but notices betray a range of characteristically Anglican upcoming activities. There's a garden party, a "potluck" lunch, a Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, a Christmas meal for the underprivileged (what, all the millions of them?). I could be home in Norfolk, apart from the parish picnic in January. 

Very un-Norfolk, however, are the memorials to those killed by the insurgents in 1857. These include George Berresford Esq., manager of the Delhi Bank, with his wife and all five daughters, and Dr Chimun Lall, a convert from Hinduism, "who fell a martyr to his faith on the day of the massacre of Christians in Delhi, 11th May 1857." As he lets me out, the caretaker asks for Rs. 20 for chai. A small price to pay. Would that Berresford's escape had been so easy.