Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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When I went to obtain my visa at the Indian Embassy I was given "drinking coupons". India at the time was a dry country, but foreign visitors were supplied with coupons with which to buy alcohol. At Delhi Airport I was received by a representative of the Indian Council who accompanied me to the Ashuka Hotel, the best hotel in the capital at the time. The first venue on my list of sites was the Taj Mahal, that masterpiece of Indo- Islamic architecture which, like other Mughal monuments, combines the precepts of the Muslim faith with the Indian aesthetic tradition. I had the pleasure of seeing it both in daylight and in the silver glow of moonlight.

Enthralled by the sight, I was reminded of the words of John Storhoff Badeleaus in The Genius of Arab Civilisation, a great book indeed. In his essay on the topic, Badeleaus underlines the diversity of regions and peoples belonging to Arab empire, explaining how the Arabs introduced a creed that blended well with the local cultures their empire came to subsume, producing a new and "richly hued civilisation" that gave the Arab empire a unique identity. The new culture thus formed, Badeleaus points out, was rather more than a simple "montage" made up of "bits and pieces of disparate cultures". It was, he says, "a new creation with its own distinctive pattern, infused with a new spirit and expressing a new social order". Pondering these thoughts during my stay in India, it occurred to me that, notwithstanding the kind of cultural assimilation Badeleaus describes, the great ancient civilisations always have elements in common, sharing even the smallest things, the beliefs and symbols of one invariably cropping up in another. The lotus flower, for example, is sacred to both ancient Egyptians and Hindus.

My guide, a female employee of the Indian Foreign Office, personified the achievements of the modern Indian woman -- achievements to which the fact that India had a foreign prime minister bore testimony. In fact I had the honour of meeting Mrs Indira Gandhi in person. She invited me to a garden party celebrating Indian independence, and it was there that I met Netwar Singh, a truly great scholar who served, as I seem to recall, on Mrs Gandhi's cabinet. We later met several times to discuss Egypt-India relations. I also met a remarkable man named Karanjia, the owner and editor- in-chief of a magazine called Blitz, at a lunch given by the Egyptian ambassador to India Dr Ahmed Hassan El- Zayyat. Karanjia turned out to be a great admirer of President Gamal Abdel-Nasser; he was to publish a book about him, in fact. In every way my sojourn confirmed the strength of our relations to this great and interesting country, and I went home satisfied.

Going to India was certainly rewarding but not exactly necessary as far as personal relationships were concerned, for I had many Indian friends in Egypt. I could claim almost every one of the Indian ambassadors to Egypt as a friend. One of my closest friends was Apa Pant, who would become High Commissioner in London, where I was to have the pleasure of dining with him at his residence in Embassy Row, on leaving Egypt; he taught me yoga and spoke luminously of Indian spiritual traditions. Another great friend of mine was Nina Sibal, minister-counsellor at the Indian Embassy in Cairo. A highly cultured lady, she mingled closely with Egyptian intellectuals, and had an intimate knowledge of the Egyptian cultural scene. She wrote a novel, Yatra, and later a collection of short stories, The Secret Life of Sujjar Mal, both delightful books. She went from Cairo straight to New York, where she served as the Indian UN representative, until news of her untimely death shocked and pained numerous Egyptians -- her loving friends.

Memories of India never end. I, for one, have an inexhaustibl e fund of them. But left to my own devices I would never stop writing...