Our house in Wazir Munzil Road had a large garden and in the centre of the garden there was a bed of marigolds. Lying on my stomach in front of the marigolds I imagined them to be a forest, which indeed they were to a small boy of seven. I decided to explore this forest and with a razor blade that I stole from my father’s shaving kit I cut a path through the marigolds, one forest tree at a time, slowly felling them as I had seen the lumberjacks do in the movies. I eventually reached the centre of the forest and there I made a circular clearing where I constructed a small village. This became my escape zone when I wanted solitude.

My playing wasn’t always solitary for I had a gang of friends, the servants’ children. One of our favourite activities was to walk single file along the garden’s parapet wall, a rag-tag army with sticks and imaginary rifles, singing marching songs and waving at people on the other side of the wall. On one of these marches we came across a man squatting on the ground who, at the sight of us, took out his penis and waved it at the girls in the group. This caused much hilarity and the boys whooped and jumped with joy while the girls laughed and pointed at him until he got embarrassed and withdrew his member into his dhoti.

The house and garden were the property of a rajah and we were living in a wing, rented from him by my father’s employer. One day, when the rajah was away, his daughter let us into one of her father’s rooms which was high-ceilinged and ornate. It had an opulent marble tiled floor, long drape curtains and a chandelier in the ceiling. The room was furnished entirely with cushions, round, squared and elongated, which were placed around the outside of the room. Usha, the rajah’s daughter, watched us with a smile on her face while we jumped and rolled around on the cushions. One of the boys in the group had the idea to take off all his clothes to get maximum tactile experience from the velvety cushions. It was not long before everyone else followed suit. Usha tolerated this for a while but eventually bundled us out of the room and brought the adventure to a close.

My brother had a girlfriend named Patsy Alone. I remember her because the name seemed very strange. He used to spend hours writing to her and drawing her elaborate pictures of roses. I thought he was mad. One day the servants began yelling that there was a snake up the tree outside the house and my brother climbed the tree and caught it. It was a python of some sort and it had climbed the tree to get after the baby squirrels in a nest at the top of the tree. He was too late to rescue the squirrels because the snake’s distended stomach showed that they had been consumed already.

My village in the marigolds continued to provide me with solitary play activity when I needed it but it was also a haven for mosquitos and I suspect that this is where I contracted malaria. I don’t remember getting sick but I do remember waking up from what must have been a delirium. I remember opening my eyes and my father telling my mother that the fever was broken. Catching malaria proved to be something of a mixed experience because I was given a stamp album, which delighted me because I could now be like my brother and collect stamps. My brother’s collection of Indian stamps was one of the few possessions he took with him to Australia and he was heartbroken when it was stolen.

We eventually left Lucknow and went to Bombay where we met my uncle Les who joined us for the voyage to Australia. I often think of that garden in Lucknow, and wonder what happened to my friends and Usha, the rajah’s daughter. I still have a photo that Usha gave to my parents.