- things in life, although coming from East Finchley my dandyism had a curiously Neo-Marxist tinge. Inevitably we quarrelled in Kathmandu, after I threw some coloured water on his Shantong silk suit during the festival of Holi. Turnbull departed to stay with some maharaja or another to whom he had a letter of introduction, while I headed by minibus for Varanasi. Strange though it may seem now, we arranged to rendezvous a month later at Srinagar in Kashmir, to see if we could resolve our differences; ah, such is the folly of youth! After an unscheduled extra week on the banks of the sacred Ganga, I entrained and took the thundering Himgiri-Haora Express across the north of the subcontinent to Chandigarh. On the train, slotted into a third-class couchette like a beige filing-cabinet drawer, I met a young couple from Maidstone. We discussed life, love, politics, religion and the future of mankind. I wrote some jejune verses in the girl's commonplace book. When we parted I breathed a sigh of relief. Fifteen years later she pitched up again while I was signing books at Hatchards in Piccadilly, and yes, she had the jejune verses. Truly, notoriety is a depth charge to your acquaintance, throwing up all sorts of dead fish, and for that reason alone it is to be avoided. There was no avoiding Turnbull either. At the appointed hour I arrived at the Tourist Office and sat huddled on a stone bench. It was cold in Kashmir, especially so