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| OF
CHAPATTIS AND JACKALS |
| (Article
Submited by : Mr. Robert L. Williams) |
Our return to Korea via America was brief
because of World War Two. In 1940, at age eleven, I found myself back in
India to be awakened every morning by the bistri pouring water into my
bathroom basin at Ingraham Institute Agriculture School, a mile from
Ghaziabad. My parents had accepted teaching positions there until they
could return to Korea five years later.
After splashing my face in the bistri's water, I would hurry to a
sumptuous chota hazari of delicious fresh chapattis and gur and juicy
mangoes. I would often amuse the cook and bearer by stuffing myself so I
could hardly stagger from the table. I needed to stoke up because I
could only be with my parents for two winter vacation months each year.
All the other months I attended woodstock, the International boarding
school, high in the Himalayas near the hill station of Landour,
Missouri. The food at school was definitely not as generous.
While at Ghaziabad, I would tire myself by chasing peacocks on my
bicycle or playing ground hokey with the Indian students. Retiring after
dinner to the cooler rooftop of our high- ceilinged brick house, I would
lie on my charpai and gaze at the stars while listening to the distant
howl of jackals and the cough of the chowkidar and the click of his
lathi.
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