The arrangement was that Diwan Singh would pick me up on Saturday morning at Kathgodam Station. The train from Delhi would arrive there at eleven forty. I asked for a four thirty alarm call at Smyle Inn to be sure of making the six o’clock train but I needn’t have bothered. I was woken at three when the family opposite – three generations plus a baby – vacated before me. Their departure was heralded by the sound of five strong lines of pee hitting the toilet water one after the other.

    As I dragged my case down the stairs to reception I could see four of the young men who worked at the hostel asleep on the floor, blankets beneath them and sheets pulled over their faces. One was unsuccessfully trying to wake another to come and attend to me. He gave up and peeled his sheets away. From behind the counter he laid out the logbook for me to sign, and handed me breakfast in a carrier bag – jam sandwiches, a banana and an eggless fruit muffin.

    Once on the rain I couldn’t bring myself to photograph the black shacks and shelters which lined the sides of the tracks. Even the brick-built dwellings looked precarious with their wooden struts and corrugated iron rooves, some overlain with tarpaulin held down with stones. 

    At Rudrapur a group of eight laughing middle-aged passengers boarded the train and sat at the tables in front and to the side of me. They chatted and visited each other until one woman unpacked two large bags and began handing out paper plates with food.

    ‘Are you having a picnic?’ I asked as the woman passed. She smiled.

    ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

    ‘Nainital.’                                                                                                                                                                                          

    ‘We are going to Nainital!’

    When she had served her friends she brought me a plate of food with a floral serviette and a spoon. She pointed with a scarlet fingernail to each item on the plate.  

    ‘This is puri, this is kachori, this is aloo subzi, this is jalibi. All home-made.’

    I thanked her, delighted to have been included. 

    When the picnic was repacked one of the husbands took a walk along the carriage and on his way back stood behind my seat.

    ‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

    ‘London. I’m following in some of my father’s footsteps from World War Two. He was in the RAF.’

    I took my ipad out of my bag to show him some of the black and white photographs my father had taken. I’d discovered fifty-two negatives at his home in Ramsbottom after he died; each was held in a translucent paper sleeve and clasped in a stiff black wallet. At the front of this ‘Film Storage Album’ were four sheets of lined paper where he had written captions in pencil against the number of each negative. A photography shop had printed them and put them on a CD.

    ‘This is my father in uniform. In Cuttack.’ He was smiling in his shorts and thick woolly socks.

    ‘1944,’ the man read from the caption under the photograph. I scrolled down.

    ‘A bazaar in Coonor.’

    ‘1944 also.’

    ‘Bullock’s Carts, Fyzabad.’

    ‘1942.’

    ‘Hills, Chakrata. 1942.’ The shadowed peaks ranged across the horizon.

    ‘Chakrata?’ He turned to his friend. ‘Chakrata? Where is it?’

   ‘It’s near Mussoorie,’ I said.

   ‘Ah yes,’ he and his friend said in unison.

   ‘I wanted to go there but I needed permission. It’s a military base.’

   ‘Cantonment.’

   ‘Yes. And here is Nainital.’

   ‘The lake!’ the man said, in recognition. The white sails of yachts reflected in the waves.

   I moved on. ‘This is Chowringhee, Calcutta, 1945.’ Then continued down to the last photograph.

    ‘Kumbhirgram, in Assam.’

    He nodded. “What was his job?’ 

    ‘He mended aeroplanes.’ I closed the ipad.

    ‘Your father had many routes across India.’

    He smiled and went back to sit with his friend.

    The train pulled into Kathgodam Station. Hills rose steeply on either side. The crowd on the platform spilled through the doors and onto the concourse outside. One after another drivers came up to offer me a ride. ‘Taxi, taxi?’ I shook my head to all of them and looked in vain for someone with my name on a sign. The same man came up to me three times. He was humble, reserved, not aggressive like some of the other drivers. He had a tilaka on his forehead – yellow underneath red. The crowd thinned. I looked around anxiously. The same man came up to me again.                                                                                           

    ‘Taxi?’

    ‘What is your name?’ I asked. ‘Are you Diwan Singh?’ I showed him the back of my hand where I’d written the name. He nodded.

    In the car park his car had been blocked in so he waited for the adjacent car to drive off before manoeuvring out. I looked for a seatbelt. There was one strap stuck behind the corner of the seat, but nowhere to fasten the buckle. I didn’t pursue it.

    We began to climb the foothills of the outer Himalayas. The road was increasingly vertiginous with one hairpin bend after another. Diwan talked constantly on his phone or looked down at it to check for messages. Again I said nothing. He was obviously very familiar with the road and had no fear of the lorries hurtling down towards us. He honked his horn at every opportunity – to overtake, while he was overtaking, when a car came the other way, and for no reason at all – as did all the other drivers. 

    The valley below fell further and further away. I couldn’t look down and focused on the bank where monkeys sat and Mexican daisies grew. My father had photographed similar monkeys in Cholavaram in 1942. In 1944, aged twenty-two, he travelled this same road, saw these same mountains dense with pine trees.

    I’d booked a two-roomed apartment – Lakeside Homestay, owned by a woman who lived in Delhi. The apartment was high above Mall Road, set in the side of a hill. I’d dreamt of swinging on the hanging chair on the balcony which I’d seen online. I’d read about Pramod, the housekeeper, who lives upstairs – his friendliness and good manners, his prowess with parathas. I longed to see the mango-shaped lake, the Nanda Devi Temple, the hidden Himalayas.

    Diwan drove up the top road behind the apartment, and there was Pramod to meet us. 

    ‘Welcome, welcome.’ He shook my hand vigorously and swung my suitcase onto his head. His thick black hair was shaved close to the side of his head and left long on top. After four flights of steep steps he turned left onto a passageway which led to the apartment, glancing back to make sure I was following him. 

    ‘Two beds,’ he said, gesturing to one in the front room and one in the back. ‘You choose.’ On the low rattan table in the front room was a bottle of Bisleri mountain water.

   ‘Very good water,’ Pramod said emphatically. ‘Very good water.’

   The hanging chair on the balcony had been replaced by a lime green plastic chair with geometric holes. The hook for the hanging chair was still screwed into the ceiling. 

    Diwan had followed us down and now both men climbed the stairs to Pramod’s apartment, leaving the door at the bottom of his stairs open. As I unpacked I could hear them talking in Hindi, with some English words thrown in. ‘Taxi, taxi,’ Diwan repeated three times. I guessed he was telling Pramod about finding me at the station. I went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up, ‘His name was on my hand!’ 

    Inside the cabinet which hung on the wall in the front room were two clocks telling different times, a print of two white tulips, a brass Ganesh, and seven books including a copy of the ‘India Handbook’. The glass door to the cabinet was jammed shut and impossible to open.                                                                                      

    The bathroom had two types of tile – yellow with brown sprigs, and pink with grey waves. They’d been laid in alternate broad vertical panels of differing widths around the walls. One seam ran from the left of the showerhead down past the taps to the floor. The bathroom window was packed and wedged closed with wads of newspaper. Surrounded by both types of tile it looked like a Robert Rauschenberg collage.

    A laminated menu on the low table in the front room gave a list of dishes available. After night fell pinpricks of light glowed against the black velvet hills across the lake. Pramod came down to take my breakfast order. 

    ‘Butter-toast with jam. Two boiled eggs. Coffee. Butter-toast with jam. Two boiled eggs. Coffee,’ he said, making sure he’d got it right.

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘No English. This English,’ he said, pointing to me, ‘this Hindi,’ he said, his hand patting his chest. He put his hands together and bowed to say goodnight.

    The next morning I wanted to use the hot water and the washing line on the balcony to wash and dry my clothes. The kitchen flooded. I called up to Pramod. He was shocked to see the amount of water swilling around the floor and began mopping and squeezing and opening windows.

    ‘Please. No good. No kitchen. Please. Bathroom. Please’.

    ‘Sorry.’

    ‘No problem. No problem.’                                                                                     

    I asked Pramod for a different towel. The black red and blue one I’d showered with was synthetic and not absorbent. He gave me another – small, white, with cotton

tufts. It had rust marks and smelled of mothballs. I also asked for more pegs to add to the two on the washing line. As I was hanging my washing he placed two more pegs on the line.

    ‘Two plus two equals four,’ he said.

    When he next came down Pramod had a small laminated card to show me. At the top it said ‘Sight Seeing’. There were several lists of place names, with the longest list at the top. He pointed at the words as he said them.

    ‘Tour. Twenty stops. Very very good. Mansa Devi Temple – very beautiful. Cave Garden – very beautiful. Horse riding. Lover’s point. Suicide point. Naini view – very good view. Himalaya View Point. Very very good view. We go ten o’clock. We come back two o’clock.

    ‘How much?’

    ‘Two thousand rupees. Very good. Very very beautiful. Tomorrow ten o’clock? Diwan very good driver.’

    ‘Let me think about it.’ 

    He looked dejected and went back upstairs.

    Lakeside Homestay is a hundred and fifty-six steps up from Mall Road – the road which hugs Nainital Lake. I knew this because I’d heard a child in the passage excitedly telling his father how many steps he had climbed. That evening I climbed down the steps to find a restaurant for dinner. Mist softened the hills and the sage green water of the lake glittered with splintering sunlight.                                                                                                   

    There by the water’s edge, beside the rowing boats, was the silhouette of my father. When the sun dipped behind the clouds I could see that he was dressed in a white wide-collared shirt and a V-necked sleeveless jumper. He was laughing and chatting with his squadron friends. As always, his shoes were polished to a sharp shine. He was sitting with his feet crossed, his wide-legged trousers folded across his calves. He noticed me and stood up. For a moment he seemed to know me, he gave a mischievous smile, then he went back to chatting to his friends. 

    I walked on and looked back over my shoulder. My father and his friends were 

walking in the opposite direction.

    That night my tummy gave way. I was poorly enough to have to rest for the next few days. I ate breakfast as usual, then only a handful of cashew nuts and a couple of liquorice toffees for the rest of the day. Pramod now brought serviettes with my breakfast in a semi-circular red plastic holder with hand painted yellow flowers. He would set the dish, plate and mug down on the low table and gesture for me to sit on the rattan sofa.

   ‘Come. Please, please. Hot, hot.’

   He was still keen for me to go on a tour. I tried to explain that I wasn’t well, pointing to my head and my stomach.

    ‘Relax,’ he said, gesturing to the bed. ‘Tour tomorrow?’

    ‘I’ll let you know in the morning.’

    ‘Morning,’ he said and went back upstairs                                                                                                   

    I laid and listened to the car horns, the chimes from the temple, the calling to prayers. Occasionally practice gunshots were fired by the army in neighbouring valleys. I looked longingly at the panoramic view of the Uttarakhand Himalayas 

framed on the opposite wall. The chiselled peaks pointed to three stray clouds in a cerulean sky.                                                                                                          

    I dozed off and when I woke my father was sitting on the end of my bed. Now he was in uniform – a sharp crease in his trousers, scalloped breast pockets and epaulets along his shoulders.

    ‘Dad?’ 

    ‘Hello there, Daughter. Are you feeling better?’

     ‘A little, thanks.’

    ‘I can’t stay long.’ He smiled his winning smile.

    ‘What are you doing here?’

    ‘Oh, you know – rowing, swimming in the freezing lake, diving off the board at Smuggler’s Rock, hanging out in the milk bar. If you can find an éclair they’re delicious.’

    ‘Sounds lovely.’

    ‘We hired some horses yesterday and rode till we saw the Himalayas.’

    ‘Are they very beautiful?’

    ‘Breathtaking.’

    ‘I can’t wait to see them.’

    ‘Riding back down through the hills the sunset was incredible. All the shades of pink you could ever imagine reflected on the mountains and the clouds.’

     ‘And you can actually breathe up here.’

     ‘I know. It’s so much cooler. Such a relief after the heat of the cities.’

     He paused and then said, ‘We’re getting ready to leave.’ 

    ‘Don’t go yet, Dad,’ I pleaded. How many more times would he leave me?

    ‘I have to.’ He took my hand. ‘You’ll be alright. It’ll be alright.’ His gentle face had the delicacy of youth and a shadow of wisdom.                                                                                                   

    ‘Will I see you again?’ He lowered his grey-green eyes and then met my gaze.

    ‘The lads are waiting. We’re off to Yellahanka – in the south. To learn about

Mosquitos. We’ve all got to pull together.’ He touched my cheek with his fingers.

    ‘I’ll carry you with me,’ I said as he stood and smoothed down his jacket.

    He made light work of sliding the heavy bolt across the door then turned and 

whispered ‘Goodbye’. I listened to his footsteps on the stairs till there was nothing left to listen to.                                                                                             

    By Tuesday I was feeling better, but not fully recovered. Pramod came to take away the breakfast things.

    ‘How are you?’

    ‘Better.’ He didn’t understand this word.

    ‘Better. Better. Better. Better … Butter. Butter – toast and jam,’ he said. I smiled.

    ‘Tour today?’ he asked. 

    ‘Yes, but 5 points, not 20 points.’ I told him the places I wanted to go. ‘How long will that take?’

    ‘One hour.’ 

    ‘I’d like to go to the Himalaya View Point first.’ It usually came at the end of the tour but I wanted to see it in the clear early morning light. We agreed a price and he went to phone Diwan.

    Pramod followed me up the stairs to the top road and when Diwan arrived he sat in the front seat of his car. 

    ‘You’re coming?’ I said, not having realized that Pramod would join us.                                                                                                

    ‘Your guide,’ he replied, with pride.

    When I tugged at the seat belt Diwan simply said, ‘No seat belt.’

    With Pramod to chat to Diwan wasn’t so much on his phone. We drove past the Tibetan market at the end of the lake and climbed out of the town. As we rounded the 

final bend to the viewpoint there were the Himalayas hanging on the horizon, suspended in banks of mist.

    ‘Oh my god,’ I said.

    ‘Oh my god,’ Pramod echoed.

    Pramod and I stood side by side at the side of the road, in admiration, while Diwan parked the car. Groups of tourists stood in various configurations for photographs. Pramod had one word to describe this scene. ‘Enjoyment,’ he said, emphatically.

    ‘Is there snow on the Himalayas all year round?’ I asked. ‘ January, February, March, April …’ 

    ‘Yes. Twenty-four seven.’

    When Diwan joined us I pointed my camera at the two friends. Diwan put his arm round Pramod and smiled. Pramod looked baffled and didn’t smile. I took their photograph three times. Spurs of forested hills folded in behind them; the Himalayas haunted the horizon with their piercing majesty.

    The other points on the tour couldn’t possibly have been as spectacular. But at each one Diwan pulled in and Pramod turned round. ‘Selfie? Selfie?’ he asked. I walked

dutifully up to a waterfall, around a shop selling souvenirs, and took shots of mango lake from the final viewpoint.

    Back at the apartment I showed Pramod the photographs of him on my ipad. He was so pleased he called Diwan down from upstairs. They flicked back and forth                                                                                        

through their shots. When Pramod got up to leave he put one finger on my knee and smiled. 

    I could hear Pramod when he talked on his phone upstairs. I could even hear the voices on the other end. Sometimes, when these were children, Pramod sounded particularly happy.

    Later that evening there was a power cut for several hours. When it was over I could hear the pleasure in Pramod’s voice as he shouted down the stairs, ‘We have light!’. He made his usual evening visit, wanting to make sure that I was warm enough.

    ‘You have blanket?’

    ‘Two blankets!’

    He pointed to the bed and held his arms around himself. ‘Pack, pack.’ I knew what he meant.

    ‘Is your family in Nainital?’ 

    ‘No. Bageshwar’.

    ‘Where is that? How long to drive?’

    ‘Five hours.’

     We looked at a map on my ipad. It was far into the mountains to the north.

    ‘You have children?’ I asked.

    ‘Yes. Son and daughter. My son nine. My daughter ten. Mayank. Kanika.’

    I thought how much he must miss them. What sacrifices he had to make to earn a living to support them.                                                                                                  

    At eight o’clock that evening Prime Minister Navenda Modi announced a currency ban in an attempt to crack down on black money and corruption. From midnight that night, five hundred-rupee notes and one thousand-rupee notes would be withdrawn from legal tender. These discontinued bank notes could be deposited at banks. All                                                                                             

banks and ATM machines would be closed the following day and would open again the day after on the Thursday – the day I was due to return to Delhi.

   The next morning Pramod asked me if I wanted to go on another tour. I pointed to my forehead and stomach and shook my head.

   ‘Relax,’ he said.

   ‘I have something for you,’ I said. I’d brought some copies of my books with me and I wanted to give Pramod a children’s poetry collection for Mayank and Kanika. I asked him to write down their names on a piece of paper so I could copy the correct spelling in the dedication. He flicked through the book and looked baffled.

   ‘Poems’, I said. ‘I wrote them.’ He shook his head slightly.

   ‘Children?’ he asked, pointing at me.

   ‘No.’

   ‘You want to help?’

    Pramod reappeared later that morning with a carefully annotated bill. He’d forgotten to add the next day’s breakfast so he went onto the next page of his pad and moved the carbon paper along. He wanted payment there and then. I went into the                                                                                          

back room and scrabbled through my rupee notes in my suitcase. My brain was still 

addled with the tummy bug. I counted out the money for the bill and kept my last five 

hundred-rupee note for my return to Delhi. The rest of the notes I added to the 

payment for Pramod. Pramod counted the money.

   ‘The rest is for you.’

   He looked down at the scrunched notes. 

   ‘Only?’ he said. ‘Boy nine, girl ten.’ 

    He looked resigned and walked away. I hadn’t counted the remaining money. It must have seemed a paltry sum.

      I started to feel shaky and wondered if I should eat something more than cashews and toffees. Pramod came back that afternoon with Diwan. I asked for another bottle of water and if I could order some food. When I first arrived he said he’d need one and a half hour’s notice for any cooking. I held the laminated menu up in front of him.

    ‘Could I have Mix Vegetable with Paneer?’

    He looked puzzled. I pointed it out.

    ‘No. No paneer.’

    ‘Oh. What about this?’ I pointed at ‘Stuffed Paratha.’

    ‘How many?

    ‘One.’

    ‘Have common sense! Boiling potatoes … making …  .’ There was a new brazen edge to his voice. I wondered if he’d been drinking, or if I’d insulted him with my meagre tip.

    ‘What can I have?’ I asked, gesturing at the menu.                                                                                  

    ‘Maggi Noodles.’

    ‘What’s that?’

    ‘Onions, fry. Noodles, boiling water. Maggi.’

    It seemed my only option. Something he wouldn’t have to shop for.

    ‘Ok.’

    The hot broth and noodles were comforting. When Pramod came to collect the plate I thanked him.

    ‘Very good. I pay you now?’

    ‘Forty rupees.’

    I gave him my last five hundred-rupee note.

    ‘For you. For the noodles, and for you.’

    His eyes widened. He folded the note carefully.

    ‘Thank you.’ It was still a small amount but he seemed pleased.

    We talked about the arrangements for the next day. Diwan would pick me up at one o’clock to drive me to the station and we’d stop off at an ATM before leaving the town. He promised me potato with my breakfast omelette. The omelette materialised but not the potato.

    I was loath to leave Nainital. I didn’t want to leave my father again. I’d seen part of the life he’d lived before I was born. I sat on the balcony, watched the yachts on the lake, and wept. The yachts were striped black and white, or green and white – not the legion of plain white triangles in my father’s photograph. A monkey was sitting on top of the tree opposite. The rail, warmed by the sun, warmed my hand.

    Diwan was upstairs chatting to Pramod. They came down together to help with my luggage.                                                                                

    ‘ATMs closed today,’ said Pramod

    ‘No!’ I said.

    ‘We hear on TV,’ said Diwan. ‘The banks needed more time to fill the machines.’

    ‘Oh well,’ I said. They looked at each other, puzzled. I threw up my hands in the air to make them understand that it didn’t matter. There would be food served on the train, and breakfast back at Smyle Inn. I couldn’t think any further than that.

    I took a last look out of the open door onto the balcony. The monkey had disappeared from the tree.

    It was dark by the time the train reached Delhi. I dragged my suitcase along Main Bazaar in Paharganj. Usually at this time the street would be alive with buying and selling, tuk tuks, crowds of people and cows walking in both directions. Now the shops were closed up, the street was empty. The stalls of clothes, ornaments and food had disappeared; the street children were hidden away. No one had the wherewithal to buy anything. A nation had run out of money.

About Chrissie Gittins

Chrissie Gittins' first short story collection is ‘Family Connections’ (Salt). Her second, 'Between Here and Knitwear' (Unthank Books), was shortlisted for the Saboteur Awards, selected by Helen Dunmore as one of her top two 2015 collections, and described by the Sunday Times as ‘exceptional'. Her stories have been broadcast on BBCR4 and published in The Guardian, Litro, The London Magazine, Wales Arts Review, The Lampeter Review, Unthology 6, Lunate, Mono, Postbox and Tears in the Fence.

• More Posts(1)