Rendezvous in Nagpur

In March 1996, I was preparing for seven weeks of research in India for a biography I was writing. Before leaving home, I hoped to get in touch with a retired physician living in New York City, a Dr. Charles Reynolds, who I’d been told could give me some important background and leads for my book. But although I phoned his home a dozen times over several days, he did not answer. "He must be away," I said to my son who was going to India with me. "Too bad he doesn’t have an answering machine." So, I had to fly off to India without interviewing Dr. Reynolds—a disappointment, but I would try again to reach him when I got back.

After 24 hours en route, our 747 landed in India’s, then, largest city, whose name had just changed from Bombay (what the British had always called it) to Mumbai (what local Marathi and Gujarati speakers had always called it). From Mumbai, we planned to travel by rail to Nagpur, a city of two million in the heart of India’s orange country. In 1896, Raghujiraje Bhonsletested—which is for me to spell and you to pronounce—tried growing oranges in his Nagpur kitchen garden. The trees flourished and today something like two million tons of oranges are harvested in those parts every year. It is not hard to see why Nagpur is known as the orange city, although its actual name means City of Snakes.

The journey from Mumbai to Nagpur is 500 miles. We decided to get second class sleeper tickets, which cost only seven dollars and offered a more adventurous trip. Some Indian friends reading this blog might think we were inviting a little too much adventure, for although we had assigned seat numbers, in that travel class a seat assignment doesn’t guarantee you the seat. You take the seat you can get. And for the eleven and a half hours it takes to get from Mumbai to Nagpur, you and your traveling companion must vigilantly guard it or you will certainly lose it. But if you want to meet and mix with ordinary Indians, and you have a strong chain and lock to secure your luggage under the seat, second class sleeper can be great fun.

On neither the train, nor on the way to our hotel, did we see any European (white) faces. Nagpur has tourists, but it is not a tourist city like Mumbai, Delhi, or Chennai—strange in a way because Nagpur is a beautiful metropolis that some say is the cleanest, greenest city in India. Moreover, it a warmly, welcoming place.

I suppose because we had seen no other white faces, we immediately noticed the man walking toward us when we entered the hotel lobby. We greeted him and were pleased to hear him respond in English, though with a lilt of Irish brogue.

"Tell me who you are and where you’re from," I said.

"Well," said the man, "my name is Charles Reynolds, and I am a retired physician living in New York City."