The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 115
115 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN my wife and daughter with me; and that on the financial side, as my salary as Judge of the Supreme Court was more than the salary and allowances of the British Ambassador in Chungking, I would be considerably worse off by taking up the assignment. He added, "There is, however, nobody else I can think of who can carry out the assignment with as much ability and dignity as you can. " He was anxious that the Chinese administration should be impressed by the fact that a man had been chosen from the top-most ranks to be India's first representative. He added some personal compliments to me. It was not so much the contents of the letter that influenced my decision. In fact, some of the factors mentioned in the letter should have dissuaded me from accepting. Having been in the Cabinet for a number of years, and having worked with Lord Linlithgow since 1936, who had been personally very nice to me, I felt that if he had need of me, and thought that I could be useful, it would be somewhat ungracious of me to say no. But it was a hard wrench. We had taken a house in a lovely spot in Gulmarg, in Kashmir, for our summer residence. We had furnished it exactly as our official residence in Delhi had been furnished, having gone to a lot of trouble and expense over it. We had got the same furniture-maker to make us a duplicate set of furniture and everything, so that my wife should feel it was the same home except that instead of being in Delhi it was in Gulmarg. I had been looking forward very keenly to my first vacation after a number of years, as my two war years in Government had been very strenuous. Then this came. I mentioned the matter to my wife. She was very disappointed, but agreed that I could not help saying yes. So I wrote to the Viceroy saying yes. Luckily, the period was cut down to four months. Just when the Viceroy had asked me and I had agreed to go, the Japanese occupied upper Burma, and the Burma Road, from Burma into China was cut off, the air service that used to go from Calcutta to Chungking via Burma, was suspended. I had to wait till something else could be organized, and that gave me a few days up in Gulmarg, which instead of making my departure easier made it more difficult. The place is so lovely: my first vacation with my wife and daughter could have been so enjoyable. Eventually I got to Chungking by what was known as the service over-the-Hump. This was a blind-flying service of DC-3s, from Calcutta