Longing For Short Clothes in India comical poem 708 by Angela Lansbury

The year was nineteen sixty four

I've checked - it was a decade more

Too long a single I'd tarried

The year before I got married

Last boyfriend said, 'I've a conference

I'm going to Bombay

How would you like to come along?'

It seemed exciting, far away

To a novice travel vulture

India's a strange new culture

I left London in winter boots

For flip-flop tropics without suits

I'd worn my London miniskirt

But ladies there wore a saree

They looked at me like I was dirt

I draped a scarf in a hurry

The hotel gate grows begging kids

Demanding coins, each a winner

I learn money's for them or me

I can't afford to buy dinner

Hotel breakfast - not much to eat

No bacon, sausage, where's the meat?

Waiters are shocked when I complain

I reject fruit, think it's a cheat

The event was just for lawyers

It cost a millionaire's rupees

To get in free I did typing

I asked, 'Find me typewriters, please'

They showed me upstairs to a room

Alone, it's silent as a tomb

Then in rush men, they stop and stare

I am the only woman there

Every secretary's a man

It seemed the very strangest land

Now London's full of Indians

And Bangladeshi food

No need to travel half the world

If curry takes your mood

Our pub is stocking Indian beer

And serves weekly Indian grub

A good place to drink and eat

And meet Indians who live in my street.

Did I say Indian beer?

Indian Mango beer - made here.

-ends-