"أيام ثيم ولَّت" [و‎‎٤‎٧] (٢٤٨/٩٣)

48
There had recently been a particularly vicious outbreak of
communual rioting in Multan in which hundreds of Muslims and
Hindus had been murdered and millions of rupees worth of damage
had been caused by the burning of shops and bazaars. As a
new-comer, free of local involvement or bias, I was deputed to
try the case which had triggered off the whole deplorable
outburst. It turned out to be a trivial incident in which two
Muslim women draped from head to foot in the traditional burqa
had entered a Hindu shop and secreted (or had not?) various goods
beneath their draperies.
The shopkeepers had searched them and thus violated (or so they
claimed) their chastity, providing the spark which set off an
immense conflagration.
In the spring I was ordered to attend the meeting of the Chamber
of Princes in New Delhi, at which, I imagine to their lasting
regret, they decided not to accede to the proposed Federation of
India. My duties were purely formal - meeting their Highnesses
on arrival - and I was not privileged to attend their
deliberations. My journey there was unforgettable. I set out to
drive the four hundred and something miles from Multan to Delhi
in one day, and found the road cut by floods in the South-East of
the Punjab.
This involved leaving the road and driving across fields and over
rough country for more than twenty miles. When I eventually
arrived in Delhi I fell asleep in my bath.
Finally orders came for my first posting - as Vice-Consul in
Seistan in South-East Persia - and I set off via Quetta where I
sadly played my last game of polo, sold my polo-ponies and headed
West.
It was the spring of 1939 and I was just 27 years old.