1958-01-03 — Page 4

THE CHINA MAIL,

FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1958.

0000

"A few less mince pics and ports on the sly and perhaps we'll have fower Father, Christmases shuffling about half the night."

T

HE world's most distinguished woman has trained

herself to rise above loneliness,

Toward the end of an hour's talk with India's first woman High Commissioner in London, 67-year-old Madam Ranjit S. Pandit, I asked Her Excellency if she were a lonely person.

"I am very lonely," she said

MADAM

PANDIT

By Mary McAlpine

women are educated to political issues you will walt too long."

She chose one of her positions.

drst

of

"When I was Minister Health. That was my most. pleasant job. It was reward- fog and fulalling."

CAMBRIDGE MEN?

AMBRIDGE is a city

which is perpetually on exhibition--the only Univer- sity in Britain which looks better than, its picture post- cards. And noisy, smoky, metropolitan London seems a week's stage coach ride away.

dismiss

90

24

Oxford men may their ancient rival picturesquely conformist back- water. But beneath the un- rippled surface of the Fentand pool, life sometimes. bubbles

and

That is the verdict of the only girl student to have a fan club named after her.

stira with strange sub- marine unexpectediness

The President of the Cam- bridge Union seems at first elche figure," He is a school- boyish swot with lank fair hair, chubby pink cheeks and spec- tacles, He is an Old Rugbelan, o cinssiry scholar and, like the lust four presidents, a Tory.

ISABELLA SZCZERBINSKA

In Portugal we mature earlier.

by ALAN BRIEN

they have no man to take them Out!

Eccentricity is no longer the cult it was in the '20s and 30s. A few odd individuals all excite the anused attention of There their college neighbors.

trombone.

"SHERBINSKA"

groups as

But unlike the last four presidents, Keith MacInnes has just spent his summer vacation digging an open-air sewer four thousand miles from Cambridge. Ills motive was not political She sits down, writes, and pro- (or even social) but Ananelol. duces something. He mind in

With an expeditionary force trained I sit down and am

of other enterprising hard-up But isn't there a danger in disorganised and, much later, I Cambridge undergraduates, ho

the vole when produce something. Elving people

took a boat to Canada and

is the incredibly rich young man they do not understand the

devoted to con- issues?

"Some people have said they spent eight weeks as a highly ray we're all working class here

paid glusy. The average wage now. These smart rowdy dining who is so are pleased I did not have

was £35 a week and the jobs clubs like the Bullingdon and spicuous waste that he will oll

blcycle only "Life is full of dangers," she university training.

with My mind

varied from building a cricket the Grid only exist in Oxford. his

There another snapped unek. "Unless you are is freer. I don't know.

Socialites ayold Cambridge to Benedictine. willing to take risks you will would have liked the training pitch to digging drains,

day MacInnes believes that most day. They either stay in London who for a bet cycles the streets with both hande not progress. But there is one

or go to Oxford. Prestige comes cach

In playing tho thing. You can give us some-

I asked Mrs Fandit which of undergraduates are placid, un- from what you do here, not pecupled th: but, to keep it, we must her many jobs she had most en-demonstrative supporters of the where you come from." have something in ourselves." Joyed.

Macmillan Government. But ho

Warner: "Sull there are too When we dropped politics,

admits: "A great many people here are thinking of emigrating many people here of the same Madam Pandit changed. As she

to Canada. spoke about herself this woman

Personally I And

age. That always leads to im-

. And among the serious and one gets used to one's own maturity as any anthropologist radile sociciles of every kind became all woman.....

country. But just in case our will tell you. A university is

appear such unique Industry does grind to a halt in an intellectual form of slave the Szczerbinska (pronounced 10 years, it does one no harm labour-Siberia with books."

Sherbinsko) Society. This is to dig up contacts elsewhere,"

confined to members. et St Johna that not many I suggested

a lovely Polish' - who warship

aludcnt called archaeology Isabella Szczerbinska,

Miss Szczerbinska Is the 20- year-old daughter of a pre-war Polish diplomat who now lives in Portugal. What is her opinion of Cambridge men?

came here I like weather forecasting or Edinburgh as a leader la silly. was afraid that they would be even fortune-telling,"

It's not possible, so why discuss cold, polite and sexless. That' Tory economist

everybody MacInnes It?

Imaginea Anyway, we don't want a is how may be thought to have a lender, we want an organiser." them in Portugal. Over there, And what does Her Excel-vested interest in emphasising

Sinclair. I'm against Messiahs we mature much earlier. lency consider her pleasant job?

Cambridge's quiet contentment especially if they look like Colin

Wilson.

"It doesn't maiter there When the bright men and whether a man is married or women of Cambridge become even just in iqve with someone vehement it is over concrete else. It you ate pretty, he will day-by-day issues. One of the make love to you. The English-

honest, prettiest and smartest of the man is girls is Penny Balchin, daughter faithful. And just a little bit of the covelist Nigel Balchin. afraid, Now I've got used to. She is angry about the practical this quiet approach, I like it' drawbacks of, being a woman at very much." Cambridge

She was charming, na fer re=" putation confinns, but charm can not simulate hanesly.

And honest she is, ធម៌ person

-Madam Pandit said the works every day but Sunday and has

Yet, she told me, the job did at not come eastly.

"I am always nervous when sho evch today," speaking, sold. "But as president of the Assembly I had to keep my

It mind clear and alert.

Was

ND is the Indian High Com- missloner's job rewarding

She laughed.

no annual holiday. She arrives and fulling?

a.m. India House at 10. "after doing my household

work arranging the menu," dinner parties, that sort Of thing," and usually stays until on the pm, "depending amount of work."

G

different in the carly days "If there is not much to do when I spoke with emotion and at India HOUBC 1

go home and omotion. In the reason and clear work on my files." Assembly, thinking came first."

slowly, "and yet not lonely at scholar who gave up his career appealed to

to follow Gandhi und fight aloteside his wife for his coun- lle died try's independence. shortly after being released from a British prison.

all. I live virtually alone-- ILY servants are three floors above mo-but since my husband died I have trained inyself against Joneliness.

"It would

terrible bo horrible—if I alłówcd myself to be lonely."

After his death, Madam Pandit look on even more responsible and, consequently, more lonely

But this small art beautiful Jobs, grey-haired woman in the sart.

It is one of the unusual, and admirable, characteristics of this powerful woman that she would often

* * *

evenings,

active, appear in long HER

are usually "but since coming queues to buy a sandwich and to London I have cut down on a cup of coffee in the cafelerle.

U.N.

She has set on the floor with who sat behind the enormous In 1045. she left India for students at India House, listen- desk in India House, must have San Francisco. Inside this city's Ing to her brother spook. I exhibit started training herself many opera house the United Nations watched her open an

paintings before before увага

her husband's Organisation was being planned, of Indian

Lon- death in 1944.

and her country's views were very small gathering in

She being heard through British don's Imperial Institute,

spoke simply, honestly, clearly, There was no shum, no posed grandeur.

Zetween 1031 and 1947. voices, when

Briush Blog the

was lowered and the Indian Hag Outside. 庭 handsome Indian raised over her country, this woman was gathering reporters sister of India's Prime Minis- around her, speaking in publle And yet he can blaze with ter, Pandit Nehru, and then the and neross the American radio pristocratic Indignation mother of three children, was networks, demanding freedom debate or an interview. three times taken to gool as a for India, And she was heard political prisoner of the British, more frequently, and with

greater effect, ilon India's "Gaol," she said, "is never official representatives Inside pleasant. Being restricted in the opera house, any way is not pleasant,

in

social activities.

1

"I have explained that have not the time, energy or the health for it,"

"Yet," she said, with suggestion of despondency, "I st entertain and am enter tained a great deal."

"Far from it. Now I have n lat of obligations and no- thing for them."

most un-

Madam Pandit paused, "What was my worst job?" she asked slowly. "I don't know. I've never really been miserable. I have degrees of happiness rather than unhappi-- ness. Ambassador to Mios. cow. perhaps that WDS confining ond dull ... but, no, I was not miserable. Not even unhappy.

"You know," she said, with an amused and warm expression, "I have seven darling grand- children — utter rascals all of them, I miss them very much.”

д in

Sinclair: But it's good for us, contacts for an economist would We ought to remember ware be dug up

sower, young men of 22. The trouble "Economists can always and a with Colin Wilson is that he has never learned to say 'I don't Job," he explained,

We don't want to be

City men don't realise how know."

mistaken for him."

academic and theoretical our course is. Or that economics is

About the monarchy, Warner

at best a predictive science, says: "Talk about the Duke of "When I Arst

PENNY BALCHIN

***

moro

mano

I agree with Miss Szczer– "About Newnham-it may binska The young men and sound trivial-but I resent the women of Cambridge do not decor. Just to look at, it does wear their henris, or their not compare with a

They man's minds, on their alceves. college. It is designed ilke a are concerned and moved by a boarding school for overgrown great many things in the world # resent the decas.

girls, That's exactly how it is of 1057. But they prefer the If there is a quiet approñch. "Girls rarely stay in college Big Brother making his way to with the status quo. But some

in 1984, he would An old friend of Madam Pan-of his opinions seem confirmed in the evenings to discover the power

other wise not to underestimate them. companionship of each And does she enjoy this part dit once said the High Commis by one of Cambridge's liveliest if they do, it is assumed that

(London Express Serolog). of her oficial life?

sioner would keep Britain's radicalsa lanky, wild-haired called Willy "No," and Her. Excellency Prime Minister walting if she Wykchemist made a slight grimace. "When were playing with her grand-Donaldson.

children, I was Indian Ambassador in Washington

WOK dreadful. But if she had her life to live All 52WV was the diplomatic again, would Madam Pandit

people choose the same course?

the · SAME

corps wherever I went

It la

more

"I'd do the same thing," sho said, with a conviction bom of years of experience,

The small woman behind the "OL course London offers desk smiled broadly and looked ONCE, during our talk, I saw With India's

her intense black eyes be wider sopethe arts, the then- directly at me. Independenco

tre, and 50 on. "But as political prisoners won, Madam Patidit moved in como acarly hostile.

pleasant." we were given more freedom side the U.N. For three years than tho

I had asked India's High Com- others. Prisoners she led India's delegation; but missioner to comment on recent of roading for

Madam Pandit has a

Han hour were catagorised by the British her thoughts were not confined -A, B or C," she smiled. "We by national boundaries.

criticism that India, under her two? every night before going were allowed Ibrary books.

brother, is in danger of be to sleep. sometimes a weekly paper, and

coming a dictatorship.

"An imperative duty," she we were able to see our closest sald, is placed on those of us relatives--husbands or parents.” who represent the coloured races of mankind to remind Botween

prison torms, In this

General Assembly that 1037, Mrs Pondit became her Africa and Asia are un the country's first woman cabinet march and will no longer ac-

She minister,

given cept the indignities imposed on responsibility for the health of them in the name of a white the 48,000,000 people in the civilisation." United Provinces, one of India's

was

znost backward states.

In this job, her clear, deter-

mined volco was first hoard

across India.

She admonished

her people for their "Indolence 1953, she stepped up to

the seat of president of

habit ΟΙ

"I have been very fortunate, Life has taken from me, but it has given me so very much.

"No, I'd live it again, pro-

"I read the classics-it is the Her eyes blazed, but she only time. I have to improve answered with determined slow- my mind. Yes, I do read cisely the same way."

detective stories I'vo

read ness and patience.

hundreds, Their great

al- "You must understand, to us vantage is that you do not have democracy means food.

in to remember them." Britain you have a democracy

Madam Pandit did not which has evolved over many centuries. Our democracy is 10 ceive a university education. years old, and is suffering a handicap of 200 years of foreign ruio,

||FOCE

CARTOON

re-

by OSBERT LANCASTER

LTHOUGH her father, a dis

Linguished Lawyer and par- lamentarian,

was. Western- minded, he considered it in- correct for young women to attend universities.

The British left India with an 63 or 00 per cent literacy rate, an average ikke-span of 20 and solishness ... I am tired of the General Assembly. Here years, no roads except trunk bearing complaints of the dis- ishe rapped the West for sgraceful stato of local adminis- "Imperialism and colonialism,"

roads used for military pur- tration there is too much and sho

poses, feudalism in the states of watched Soviet do- The worst kype. passivity in India."

legato Vishinsky's poker-face break into a smug grin. But "Today, we have no effective Vijaya Lakshmal Pandit was Sho also won her people's a few minutes later the Kris

opposition to the Congress party, educated at home by an English

lator werk rospect by touring an area d'appeared. The U.N.'s first But when we are older we shall mess, where cholera raged, by ming woman president was denounc- have a healthy opposition; 1.Switzerland to school. ling freely with the amleted ing the U.S.S.R. for "war hope we shall we will have." and, by her example, getting the 709003 the led as minister" to dambis their efforts,

But perhaps the loneliness has ́been much "greater since ideath of her husband.

morigering."

to

"I am sorry I did not attend university," sho... said, “I · ad-

I asked this woman who har mire the way my daughters

It was on this podium that fought all her pubile life for the work Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (her bottement of the under-dog if names moan Goddess of Vic-

betterment of the underdog if we attended Wellesley, the

the tory) became universally amacipation of women in back- well-known AmezİCRO” YÖKMODY'S

· Nahile' S. Pandit was a dis- Mingulabed lawyer and Banskrit

known admired and, perhaps, ward countries. · feured for her' grasp of affalen, her honesty and her single- mindedness,

university.

"None," the replied without "Don Is a writt. I like the hazifailom, “If you wait until way she approachías her work,

Mark my words, híme, Brioche, we shall see the Hitle one in the Qual

nstato

Donaldson is angry about a lot of thing!, Ho resents an with class England "riddled consciousness" where an Establishment rules whatever party is officially in power, Ho considers the present Govern- ment "Ineffectual if not actually He condemns dangerous," British plays and films on the whole as "ghastly and childish." And he believes that monarchy, a state broadcasting ryster, and a state church too often serve to bolster the pre- Judlers of the upper classes,

Cambridge pultor of the undergraduate review Gemini, Donaldson is carrying out I

discover how much poli to steam power he has behind him. In

college Magdalene, ho questioned 25 undergraduates--a cross-section

bis

own

of the college. The results Macinach suggest that neither nor Donaldson alone represents the majority.

PERSONAL BELIEFS

I cavesdropped at a party on

a conversation between two of the brightest of the 1687 crop.

On my right in Andrew Sinclair wlity talker, quibor of somó of the most originai Action now being written in the Vemify, He is Ioan · and shambling, with those carefully dishevelled clothes and that jocular speer often found in Old Stonien intellectuala, - d

On my 1611-la Ilinckpool-born Malcolm Wardor, prosklent of the unconventional Heration (Club, *** 21a, de short, dark, shiny

ANG ORARE. He wears a brown. katber Jacket --

Rübení Oxford and Cambridge,

TAIKOO

TAIR

GOLDEN S

GOLDEN SYRUP

and adults

Children love it on bread with cereals or let's admit

it straight out of the tin on their fingers!