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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, Mussoorie. 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. |