We could feel the heat rising in the eternal campaign this morning. There was the fall-out from one of the efforts to secure the most powerful office in the land. There is talk of impeachment abroad and ashore and more entertaining antics as our current President spent some time at the G20 conference. There is more, of course. We brought some of the issues about 9/11 out to The Patio over nightcaps, since some of the events had direct connection to the Terrible Very Bad No Good Day 22 years ago.

There was plenty of news from all over. Not all of it was good, of course, but that would be what we have become accustomed to these days. We got word from Florida that Diva the Wonder Weiner dog had departed this world after a dozen years. She chose to do it in conjunction with the annual Group of Twenty (G20) Meeting over in New Delhi.

We had been writing about a trip to that distant capital as the culmination of the book about our Official Travel Days. Like Pyongyang, Delhi had long been a world hot sport. At least it was hot to us. We steamed the Indian Ocean a long time ago on our first visit out there, and there was hope for a decent port visit in a historic place and some positive emotions. Accordingly, the words “First” and “Last” cross paths this morning.

India had been the crown jewel in diadem of the British Empire. The enterprise had lasted nearly four hundred years. In one form or another, anyway. The East India Company had been founded on December 31, 1600, as an indirect means of establishing commercial rule over millions of South Asian people.

We have shared the experience of changing Millenniums with those Imperialists, so it is not surprising special emphasis was placed on a year with all those zeros in it. Our trip was chartered by the President. It was about nuclear testing in Pakistan, which was a response to the addition of atomic weapons by the Indians, who used to call the Pakistanis countrymen if somewhat ardently opposed co-religionists.

When our scheduled visit to Karachi, Pakistan, was cancelled long ago it gave us an erroneous impression of how things worked in what is now the World’s Largest nation by population. The Presidential-sponsored visit in 2002 demonstrated some of the complexities inherent in relations with the subcontinent. The President himself set the tone for this one, and it featured some of the usual minor embarrassments we have come to expect.

It justified a look back to the book we are wrapping up now. We were in correspondence with a pal at the BBC in 2005, a year in which we were still adjusting to life back in civilian clothing. My older son was just back from an educational trip to Pakistan not caught up in the changing World Order. You might be interested in it, since we had just returned from the Indian side of the Border.

He said it was the strangest and most compelling thing he has ever seen. We were proud to be a somewhat distant part of it, even if it was on the other side of the line.

These are challenging times that incorporate some old challenges. Some of the international community is muttering that a well-placed atomic bomb (or two) might be one of the ways the Ukraine conflict is ultimately resolved. Two decades before we had only been worried about how to go about holding the ceremony of Beating Retreat at Wagah.

That was a fascinating story, how the ceremony came to be, and it of course embodied the traditions of the British Raj, the frantic drawing of the Partition Line, and the migration of a dozen millions former citizens at Independence.

The precise deal? The Indian Army was stopped at Wagah in 1965 by Pakis flying American F-86s, just as we seem to be providing F-16s to the Ukrainians now. The division of South Asia was the matter at hand. Or at least that is the story.

A white line, half-way between Lahore and Amritsar, the Zero Point is the only land crossing in the 1,250 miles border. There are grandstands on either side, and the towering matched troops of India and Pakistan mirror each other, strutting and shouting as the crowd roared their approval.

Personally, I felt dishonest about commemorating the component of the event that was so near. The President had made attendance on 9/11 a secondary priority to the Gee Twenty. It was the first one missed in 22 years, and the President reminded us it was appropriate since President’s miss Pearl Harbor Day all the time now.

That was how the whole day seemed to go, I had only looked toward the state of Pakistan once before. I was assigned to lead a delegation to Delhi and stood at the Lahore Gate at the Old City, near Skinner’s Church, where the Mutiny had swirled.

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The last time we had seen South Asia before that trip was the outline of the lush island of Bali, viewed from the deck of the USS Midway (CV-41). My son was just back from Pakistan, and I had fitfully researched what he described as the strangest and most compelling thing he has ever seen. That was how he described the ceremony of Beating Retreat at Wagah.

It was/is a fascinating story, how that ceremony came to be, and it of course embodies the traditions of the Raj and the frantic drawing of the partition line through it, and the migration of a dozen million at Independence.

The Indian Army was stopped at Wagah in 1965 by Pakis flying American F-86s, or at least that is their story.

A white line, half-way between Lahore and Amritsar, the Zero Point is the only land crossing in the 1,250 miles border. There are grandstands on either side, and the towering matched troops of India and Pakistan mirror each other, strutting and shouting as the crowd roared their approval.

We looked at it when the delegation visited Delhi and stood at the Lahore Gate at the old city, near Skinner’s Church, where the Mutiny swirled. It was his trip, and his experience, and so we put it aside.

Back then, we could not fly over the Malacca Strait that joins the South China Sea with the Indian Ocean. “Then” was sort of like “Now,” and so we were at our leisure. We brought lawn chairs up from our staterooms and set them up on the black deck and watched the dazzling green of the island slipping by.

There was time before lunch to do nothing, except take in the sea air, and dream of the visit to Australia to come, and wonder about the iron of other ships that lay far beneath our keel.

When we tired of looking at the island we moved to the other side of the deck and looked at what we imaged was the collapsed remains of Krakatoa.

Presently, the land began to sink into the ocean and we were alone again in the blue sea. We began to think about dinner.

The Salts think about Bali sometimes in a dream state. In our youth it was a place of primitive pleasure. “Tropical Paradise” was that they served a psychoactive mushroom in the omelets, and it was said that an entire day could be spent in a pleasant haze, swimming in the ocean and drinking steadily.

I never got back there again. My friends told me there was a rustic side to the island, and a tourist side, even then, but nothing like now, where the Westerners are bombed periodically. We brought lawn chairs up from our staterooms and set them up on the black deck and watched the dazzling green of the island slipping by.

The was time before lunch to do nothing, except take in the sea air, and dream of Australia to come, and wonder about the iron of other ships that lay beneath our keel. When we tired of looking at the island we moved to the other side of the deck and looked at what we imaged was the collapsed remains of Krakatoa.

Presently, the land began to sink into the waters of the Malacca Strait and we were alone again in the blue sea. We began to think about dinner.

We think about Bali still, sometimes in a dream state. In our youth it was a place of primitive pleasure. Tropical paradise was one way to put it, and another was that they served a psychoactive mushroom in the omelets, and it was said that an entire day could be spent in a pleasant haze, swimming in the ocean, and drinking steadily.

I never got back there again. My friends told me there was a rustic side to the island, and a tourist side, even then, but nothing like now, where the Westerners are bombed periodically. We took a poll on that but it came to no actionable result. That is true about this year’s Group of 20 (G20) summit as well.

The Group of Twenty (G20) is a collection of nineteen of the world’s largest economies. It was formed in 1999, another Millennium eve, intended to be a bloc that would bring together the most important industrialized and developing economies to discuss international economic and financial stability.

Under Previous President Donald Trump there was controversy on trade, issues, global climate and migration policy. The Current President promised a return to multilateral cooperation, achieving new global agreements on corporate taxation, the Chinese Belt-and-Road (BRI) initiative and the other conflicts in progress.

There are several. Last year, there was an announcement that that the United States would support membership for the African Union (AU), a sometimes querulous bloc of fifty-five states in Africa.

It is going to work? There is a major revision to how the world works in progress China and India are part of it. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, won’t it? We are just pleased to have had the opportunity to see some of it up close and personal!

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
http://www.vicsocotra.com
(Image Socotra, Mr. Calvin Humphrey by Vic Socotra)