Madras, India

Thursday, July 4, 1929

It took me just an hour to scrub off most of the dirt after a breakfast at the station. This done, I carried my baggage a mile, and a hot one, up to the Egmore Station where I would leave from for Madura the same evening. Armed with the passport and a couple of letters, I set out to find the American Express correspondents. Instead I found the American Consul after a 2 or 3-mile walk.

One is required to have money enough to support himself or else show business connections. etc. before he is permitted to enter Ceylon. The medical exam is chiefly for Indians. I had visions of myself sailing through with about 10 or 15 rupees where a sum of 600 is usually required. In order not to be delayed and to avoid probable arguments, I asked the consul, Mr. E.M. Montgomery, to give me a letter to the Chief Inspector, showing him my American Express letter that said I had money waiting in Colombo and Bangkok. This he did, and took me to the hotel for an aperitif, where I met a Beta (Winn) and another man named Hauser. Had lunch at Montgomery’s home (bachelor) and no less than waffles—I stowed three large ones away before quitting out of politeness.

Mid-afternoon was passed by lying half-stripped under a big fan, and on real sheets, reading “The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Quite a novel book. At 4:30 three servants descended upon me and made up my bath, completely forgetting I always bathe only in rose-water. However, a fairy put a weak whisky-soda on the table to help me survive the ordeal of a bath in plain warm water.

In the meantime, it being the 4th, and all Madras Americans being desirous of a game of ball, it commenced to pour down rain in true 4th or circus-day style. None the less disturbed, my host ran the gauntlet of servants who held coats, hats, etc., finally reaching the Studebaker, and a moment later we were tearing down the seashore like nobody, the chauffeur trying to hold the rear seat down. The destination was a sort of YMCA club and grounds where some 18 Yanks gathered and after much fun got licked at baseball 17–5 by the Indians.

A glass of sour lemonade and I was whirling toward the station. Being early, I got a good seat and talked the station attendant, who thought he helped me, out of baksheesh.

Madras is a city of near a half-million and has an entirely different atmosphere about it than those cities farther north. The wide, lazy, main drag, the sea, the close heat, clouds, trees, and the very  architecture and people all give you sort of a languid feeling even before you get started. There is little to see in Madras. The public buildings are imposing, but arouse little interest.

The inhabitants seen less sturdily built than those of, say, Gaya, or more northerly cities. The dress is the same, but the women are far more careless about exposing their breasts. Instead of shaved heads, the men shave only the front part of their head, extending the forehead up three or four inches, then let the rest grow long, and tie it in a knot in back. So many of these people who do this have rather effeminate features and often I cannot tell their gender. Not all Hindus dress their hair in this rather revolting fashion. Some are completely shaved; others wear theirs much as we do, while still others let theirs grow long and wooly till they look like wild men. The men down here seem to enjoy more “war paint” than do their northern brothers. As Siva is always pictured with streaks of paint on his forehead and across his body, so do the Hindus paint in imitation. The saffron spot on their forehead just between the eyes, or else a vermilion streak or more, from this point up two or three inches. Some bedeck this section with red or white streaks, horizontal. Many streak their cheeks and some who wear no shirt streak their body. Holy men are usually particularly well painted up and in addition rub a grayish paint all over their face, limbs, and all exposed portions of their dirty body—which in 9 cases out of 10 means all of it. Makes them appear as having rolled in the mud.

Southern Indian dogs are either mangy or shed all hair because of the heat. Most of the ones snooping about the streets are pitiful, repulsive-looking hairless creatures.

Just try to do anything but hold your back teeth on this fool train! [A bout of really bad handwriting. . .]

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