The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2009

W hen the U.S. Foreign Serv- ice sent me to New Delhi as the new consul, nobody told me the job would be fun or that I would be good at it. But apparently, I was born to take care of feckless Amer- icans in the India of the 1970s. My clients were kids—as well as the not so young — the “Eat, Pray, Love” types searching for their inner beings. They followed a “hippie trail” fromGoa in the winter, north to Nepal when the weather was warm. New Delhi was a stopping-off point, where they stayed at cheap places in Connaught Circus and used embassy channels to send mes- sages home to indulgent parents. “Send money or will sell body,” was the text of a request by a petite jeans- wearing blonde. The money arrived by return cable. The Ashoka Hotel informed us that a young woman from the United States was streaking in the lobby. When I got there, she was wearing a bikini bottom, long cardigan sweater, platform sandals, a big hat and huge dark glasses. The hotel manager escorted the two of us upstairs — three actually, since I’d thoughtfully brought along a charis- matic Punjabi doctor — where we found that two young men of Persian extraction were sharing her quarters. The room reeked of sweet smoke. She was enamored of the doctor’s red turban and moved to his clinic, but was still getting drugs from somewhere. A brother visiting fromNepal provided the answer. “Look in the handle of her hairbrush,” he suggested. I finally per- suaded her to take a direct flight home. Officially illegal, drugs were still everywhere. My Americans were as- tonished to find they could be arrested for chewing a form of opium that was common on the streets. Sometimes they were picked up for possession — or transporting — sterner stuff. For my job, I’ve probably been in more jails than Joe Friday. Once, when the superintendent honoredmy request to see an actual cell, I was shown to a 30-square-foot room. My guy had seven roommates, all Europeans. As if at a diplomatic reception, they lined up to greet me, identifying themselves by name, nationality and crime. “Alain Gautier, Francais, murder.” “Virginia Carson, U.S. Embassy, um ...” Eric Cameron Smith was neither crazy nor violent, though he was identi- fied as such in the press after he tore his U.S. passport in two, leaped over the immigration desk and screamed, “You can’t deport me. I have no place to go.” He’d found a guru living in a cave in Rishikesh and never wanted to leave. The Indians thought otherwise: they gave him a “quit India” notice for over- staying his visa. He’d actually cleared customs before his man-without-a- country performance; so as far as local officials were concerned, he had already left the country. Pan Am said it wouldn’t endanger passengers by allowing a lunatic on the flight. So Eric lived in the transit lounge at PalamAirport for six weeks while the Indian government, the airline and the U.S. passport office sorted things out. I visited him every week. No one knew how Smith would react when, according to plan, he would be escorted onto the plane by a doctor (who was prepared to sedate him if nec- essary) and have a policeman at his side all the way to New York. The prisoner asked one last question before boarding: “In the movie of my life, do you think I’ll be played by Jack Palance?” That was not so wild a dream, actu- ally. After all, Elizabeth Gilbert — the Eat, Pray, Love author, who married a Brazilian and lived happily ever after— will be portrayed by Julia Roberts. My Americans found love, too. After I denied her Kashmiri houseboy a tourist visa, one middle-aged lady di- vorced her husband and married him. I was obliged to provide documentation giving him permanent U.S. residence. I found love myself in the course of this inadvertent, delicious career. But that’s another story. ■ Virginia Young accompanied her late husband, Jim Carson, on several For- eign Service assignments before his death in 1973. Her memoir will be published by ADST next year. I finally persuaded her to take a direct flight home. 68 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 9 R EFLECTIONS “Send Money or Will Sell Body” B Y V IRGINIA Y OUNG