The Foreign Service Journal, December 2003

Indians. What shows they were! On the steppes of a vast desert, feathers and spears, blood the color of vermilion and a score of trumpets and drums accompanied the raid of the Indian party on the circled wag- ons. I see these “Westerns” as the stuff of my second American experi- ence, or rather the backdrop to an eventual and inevitable change of scene. Yet I did not move right into the Arizona desert, or onto the sound- stage of Universal Studios. Our first trip toward the country of Kool-Aid and Tang led us by way of London, and a wonderfully jumpered and scarved existence by the resplen- dent black railings of Gloucester Place in the center of the city. My brother’s autism had forced the hand of my parents to look for treat- ment abroad. The 1958 riots in Ceylon did their part, as a cloud fell on the aspirations and dreams of a generation of islanders. In retro- spect, my first decade in Ceylon had been marked by the ferociousness of that week in 1958, two years before my birth, in which mobs burnt Tamils and their homes and businesses throughout the island. For a little boy, sheltered, sent off to school in his uniform, playing cricket in the afternoons, ethnic divisions and conflicts did not enter through the wide open doors of his senses. However, they must have seeped in through a crack. I was aware of difference, belonging to a cordoned-off group. I studied in the Tamil class at St. Joseph’s while other boys fell into the English or Sinhalese classes. I must have felt some incipient concern about this apparently arbitrary division of mates and academic emphases. Yet the division meant preservation, of culture through language. And why should I complain? I had not yet been stirred into the melting pot of the United States. God and statesmen did not only speak English in those halcyon days. Shedding Skin Yet, somewhere on the middle, rough or childhood passage to the new world, or at least jolly England, seat of cricket and cricket commen- tary, I gave up my Tamil skin — shed it like a snake, trammeled and pummeled its flesh, buried it in some secret corner of the armchair in which my grandmother sat when she accompanied us to London to spend the first year of our exile. The word exile keeps still its exotic and romantic glow. I think of George Lamming’s Pleasures of Exile , and of an old friend, Paul, an Irish painter I knew when I attend- ed Haverford College near Philadelphia. Paul always sported a silk scarf and constant cigarette, and exhibited fine learning in the arts of mixing spices and preparing aro- matic breakfasts in the attic. I loved attics then and now: wonderful hid- ing places as a child in London, full of buried heirlooms from the old country, later on the scene for a mattress, candles and a tryst. I left the island in 1969 by plane. Earlier émigrés would have depart- ed by steamship. I wonder how my ancestors would have left thousands 70 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3 Whether first or last, the American idea continues to draw migrants from throughout the world. “Postcards from the Past” takes the reader on a journey through time and many places; from Southeast Asia to Europe to the streets of New York City. These are all true stories. Some are humorous, some poignant; oth- ers are filled with intrigue and murder. They are all fascinating tales which chronicle the lives of a diverse collection of people — simple villagers in Java, jaded royalty in Thailand, a 60-year-old maid in Manhattan and a host of other characters including a bunch of jailbirds. Sam Oglesby has spent most of his life in Asia living and working in Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, the kingdom of Bhutan and other faraway places. In this memoir covering more than fifty years of adventure he takes us through palaces, slums, war, earthquakes, jail and even a hangover. Oglesby was educated at the University of Virginia and the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. He worked as a diplomat and international civil servant before returning to the South Bronx where he gardens, songs cabaret and writes about his life and experiences. Postcards from the Past ISBN#: Hardcover 1-4134-1202-5 ISBN#: Softcover 1-4134-1201-7 Published through Xlibris Tel: 888-795-4274 ext. 276 To purchase Order directly from online at w ww.bn.com, www .amazon.com