Page 46 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
‘What do you mean by that?’ Adela bristled. ‘India is my country just as much as yours.’
‘No, Miss Robson, it is not. Your family may have been here for a couple of generations; mine have been here for centuries. Yours are imperialists who reap the benefits of India’s wealth– tea, I believe– while we Indians are supposed to be grateful for menial jobs as coolies and tea pickers.’
Adela wanted to shout out that her great-grandmother was Indian, but feared that he might be just as contemptuous of Anglo-Indians. Besides, it was none of his business.
‘My parents do their best to provide for their workers,’ Adela defended. ‘My mother grew up among them, as did I.’
‘Do you know how much they get paid? Or where they all come from?’
‘Well, not exactly—’
‘No, I didn’t think so. It’s not your fault, Miss Robson, it’s the system. People like your parents are no doubt kind in a patriarchal way, but their efforts are just tinkering at the edges. The whole colonial machine of oppression must be broken up. We have been crushed by it for far too long.’
‘Is that what you were saying at the demonstration?’
Ghulam gave a bitter smile. ‘They don’t need telling about their oppression– they experience it daily. I was giving the workers heart to press ahead with the demands for social and political change in the princely states, where they are kept like medieval serfs. But then you have been there with Fatima and know their conditions.’
‘Enough, Brother,’ Fatima interrupted. ‘You are not on your soapbox now, and you say too much.’ She gave Adela an anxious look. ‘You mustn’t speak of this to anyone.’
‘Of course not,’ Adela said, affronted that she might think she would betray them.
‘Ghulam has done nothing wrong,’ Fatima insisted, ‘but there are those who would like to see him back behind bars. So far the police have not made the connection between my brother and me, but he cannot stay here long in case they do.’
They paused as Sitara brought in tea and gingerbread. Ghulam lit another cigarette. Adela tried to control her nervousness and act normally, as if she were not sharing afternoon tea with a hunted activist.
‘Oh, my favourite. Thank you, Sitara,’ said Adela, biting into the moist cake. ‘Delicious.’ The dark-skinned woman smiled.
‘Tea and cake,’ Ghulam said, his look mocking. ‘So very British.’
‘And Indian,’ Adela sparked back. ‘India’s consumption of tea is catching up with Britain’s– and as for cake, I bet your tooth is as sweet as mine.’
This made Fatima laugh. ‘You are right. Ghulam was always the plump one for eating too many sweets.’
Adela was pleased to see his face darken in a blush. He drew heavily on his cigarette.
‘So, Miss Robson, what brings you to my sister’s door?’
‘You do, MrKhan, in a sort of roundabout way.’ Ghulam’s eyes widened. ‘Your campaign to improve things for the hill people – it made me guilty that I’ve neglected the clinic these past few months. I’ve had a job at the Forest Office, you see, and I’m very involved in the theatre here.’ She turned to Fatima. ‘But I want to help out more this year– at least before I go to England.’
‘England?’ Fatima exclaimed.
‘Just for a holiday.’
Adela explained all about Tilly’s reluctance to take Mungo back to Britain for schooling and how she had seized on the idea of Adela and Clarrie accompanying her too.
‘She thinks it will soften the blow if we go with her, and Mother is keen to visit my Aunt Olive– she hasn’t seen her for fifteen years. And I suppose I’m quite looking forward to the adventure now it’s being planned, as long as we don’t stay away too long.’
‘Adventure indeed,’ Fatima said and smiled. ‘I’ll be happy to have as much help as you can give in the meantime.’
‘Perhaps,’ Ghulam mused, ‘you will fall in love with your homeland and not come back. Better that you get used to it now because one day you will have to leave here for good.’
‘Ghulam!’ Fatima remonstrated. ‘Don’t be unkind.’
‘I’m already in love with my homeland,’ Adela said with a defiant look, ‘and it’s India.’
‘Then you are in a minority of Britishers,’ snapped Ghulam, his eyes suddenly blazing. ‘The ones I have met talk of Britain as home– they are happy to take the best jobs here in India but send their children to school in England and retire there on their Indian pensions. They want, and get, the best of both worlds. But we Indians– millions of us– get no say in how we run our own country. Imagine for one minute what it would be like to be the other way around– if an elite few thousand Indians ruled in London over millions of Britishers.’
Adela tried to think what Fluffy might say. ‘Things are changing– maybe not as fast as you want, but there are provincial governments now run by Congress, aren’t there? And I see a lot of Indian administrators all over Simla these days.’
