During the latter part of their six-month stay in England, the trainees will be billeted in British working-class families, but for the first month they have been living in a hostel so that the transition from Indian life should not be too sudden. They are under the care of an Indian superintendent, Mr. K. S. Mahmud, who rules with kindly strictness. At the hostel there is Indian cooking, but the trainees are prepared to eat English food, for they take a progressive attitude toward social customs. In fact, they were. visiting the Training Centre Canteen within the first ten days.
For general domestic work at the hostel there are English servants, and this is probably the first time that many of these young Indians have seen Englishwomen doing housework, in-eluding the sweepers' work, which is done by inferior castles in India.
In their spare time the Indians walk about the country town in which they are living, and look with admiration at its well-built houses and gardens full of flowers. They go to the cinema, though it does not interest them as much as their own Indian films at home, and they make up their own teams for outdoor gemes, ground hockey being their favourite.
One day Mr. L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for India; came to see them at work and lunched with them at the hostel. The Indians thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony. They went to work in clean, new overalls, and for the lunch put on their best clothes. Some were in English suits, and others in Indian dress, long black coats buttoned up to the neck and wide trousers. One man wore bright, flowered silk.
Mr. Amery suggested that their stay in England' might make them more aware of India. They were of different religions and from different parts of the country, but, he hoped their life among strangers might make them feel that in spite of all their variety they had a unity as Indians. It might help them to put India above sectional and religious differences.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.