“Another custom is their sitting always on the ground with their knees up to their chins, which I know not how to account for.”—Daniel Johnson.
“Another custom is their sitting always on the ground with their knees up to their chins, which I know not how to account for.”—Daniel Johnson.
The MaleeIhavebeen watching Thomas Otway, gardener. His coat hangs on a tree hard by, and he, standing in his shirt sleeves, is slaughtering regiments of weeds with a long hoe. When they are all uprooted and prostrate, he changes his weapon for a fork, with which he tosses them about and shakes them free of soil and gathers them into heaps. Then he brings a wheel-barrow, and, piling them into it until it can hold no more, goes off at a trot. I am told his only fault is that he isslow.
I have also stood watching Peelajee. He, too, is a gardener, called by his own people aMalee, and by us, familiarly, aMolly. He sits in an attitude not easy to describe, but familiar to all who have resided in the otiose East. You will get at it by sitting on your own heels and putting your knees into your armpits. In this position Peelajee can spend the day with much comfort, which is a wonderful provision of nature. At the present moment he also is engaged in the operation of weeding. In his right hand is a small species of sickle called akoorpee, with which he investigates the root of each weed as a snipe feels in the mud for worms; then with his left hand he pulls it out, gently shakes the earth off it, and contributes it to a small heap beside him. When he has cleared a little space round him, he moves on like a toad, without lifting himself. He enlivens his toil by exchanging remarks upon the weather as affecting the price of grain, the infirmity of my temper and other topics of personal interest, with an assistant, whom he persuaded me to engage by the day, pleading the laborious nature of this work of weeding. When two or three square yards have been cleared, they both go away, and return in half an hour with a very small basket, which one holds while the other fills it with the weeds. Then the assistant balances it on his head, and sets out at one mile an hour for the garden gate, where he empties it on the roadside. Then he returns at the same rate, with the empty basket on his head, to Peelajee, who is occupied sitting waiting for him.
It is clear that there may be two ways of doing the same thing. I have no doubt there is much to be said for both, but, upon the whole, the advantage seems to lie with theMalee. Otway does as much work in a day as Peelajee does in a week. But why should a day be better than a week? If you turn the thing round, and look at the other side of it, you will find that Otway costs three shillings a day and Peelajee two rupees a week. So, if you are in a hurry, you can employ half a dozen Peelajees, and feel that you are making six families in the world happy instead of only one. And I am sure the calm and peaceful air of Peelajee, as he moves about the garden, must be good for the soul and promote longevity. I hate bustle, and I can vouch for Peelajee that he never bustles. However, there is no need of odious comparisons. There is a time for everything under the sun, and a place. Here, in India, we have need of Peelajee. He is a necessary part of the machinery by which our exile life is made to be the graceful thing it often is. I pass by bungalow after bungalow, each in its own little paradise, and look upon the green lawn successfully defying an unkind climate, the islands of mingled foliage in profuse, confused beauty, the gay flower beds, the clean gravel paths with their trim borders, the grotto in a shady corner, where fern and moss mingle, all dripping as if from recent showers and make you feel cool in spite of all thermometers, and I say to myself, “Without theMaleeall this would not be.” Neither with theMaleealone would this be, but something very different. I admit that. But is not this just one secret of the beneficent influence he has on us? Your “Scotch” gardener is altogether too good. He obliterates you—reduces you to a spectator. But keeping aMaleedraws you out, for he compels you to look after him, and if you are to look after him, you must know something about his art, and if you do not know, you must learn. So we Anglo-Indians are gardeners almost to a man, and spend many pure, happy hours with the pruning shears and the budding knife, and this we owe to theMalee. When I say you must look after him, I do not disparage his skill; he is neat handed and knows many things; but his taste is elementary. He has an eye for symmetry, and can take delight in squares and circles and parallel lines; but the more subtle beauties of unsymmetrical figures and curves which seem to obey no law are hid from him. He loves bright tints especially red and yellow, with a boy’s love for sugar; he cannot have too much of them; but he has no organ for perceiving harmony in colour, and so the want of it does not pain him. The chief avenue, however, by which the delights of a gardener’s life reach him is the sense of smell. He revels in sweet odours; but here, too, he seeks for strength rather than what we call delicacy. In short, the enjoyment which he finds in the tones of his nativetom-tommay be taken as typical of all his pleasures. I find however, that Peelajee understands the principles of toleration, and, recognising that he caters for my pleasure rather than his own, is quite willing to abandon his favourite yellow marigold and luscious jasmine for thepooteenaand thebeebeenaand thefullax. But perhaps you do not know these flowers by their Indian names. We call thempetunia,verbena, andphlox. This is, doubtless, another indication of our Aryan brotherhood.
Peelajee is industrious after the Oriental method—that is to say, he is always doing something, but is economical of energy rather than time. If there are more ways than one of doing a thing, he has an unerring instinct which guides him to choose the one that costs least trouble. He is a fatalist in philosophy, and this helps him too. For example, when he transplants a rose bush, he saves himself the trouble of digging very deep by breaking the root, for if the plant is to live it will live, and if it is to die it will die. Some plants live, he remarks, and some plants die. The second half of this aphorism is only too true. In fact, many of my best plants not only die, but suddenly and entirely disappear. If I question Peelajee, he denies that I ever had them, and treats me as a dreamer of dreams. I would not be uncharitable, but a little suspicion, like a mouse, lurks in the crevices of my mind that Peelajee surreptitiously carries on a small business as a seedsman and nursery gardener, and I know that in his simple mind he is so identified with his master thatmeumandtuumblend, as it were, into one. I am restrained from probing into the matter by a sensitiveness about certain other mysteries which may be bound up with this, and about which I have always suppressed my curiosity. For example, where do the beautiful flowers which decorate my table grow? Not altogether in my garden. So much I know: more than that I think it prudent not to know. For this reason, as I said, I forbear to make close scrutiny into what may be called the undercurrent of Peelajee’s operations, but I notice that he always has in hand large beds of cuttings from my best roses and crotons, and these flourish up to a certain point, after which I lose all trace of them. He says that an insidious caterpillar attacks their roots, so that they all grow black and wither away suddenly. I fall upon him and tell him that he is to blame. He protests that he cannot control underground caterpillars. He knows that I suspect, and I suspect that he knows, but a veil of dissimulation, however transparent, averts a crisis, so we fence for a time till he understands clearly that, when he propagates my plants, he must reserve a decent number for me.
Griffins and travelling M.P.s are liable to suppose that theMaleeis a gardener, andergothat you keep him to attend to your garden. This is an error. He is a gardener, of course, but the primary use of him is to produce flowers for your table, and you need him most when you have no garden. A high-classMaleeof good family and connections is quite independent of a garden. It seems necessary, however, that your neighbours should have gardens.
The highest branch of theMalee’sart is the making of nosegays, from the little “buttonhole,” which is equivalent to a cough on occasions whenbaksheeshseems possible, to the great valedictory or Christmas bouquet. The manner of making these is as follows. First you gather your flowers, cutting the stalks as short as possible, and tie each one firmly to an artificial stalk of thin bamboo. Then you select some large and striking flower for a centre, and range the rest round it in rings of beautiful colours. If your bull’s eye is a sunflower, then you may gird it with a broad belt of red roses. Yellow marigolds may follow, then another ring of red roses, then lilac bougainvillea, then something blue, after which you may have a circle of white jasmine, and so on. Finally, you fringe the whole with green leaves, bind it together with pack thread, and tie it to the end of a short stick. If the odour of rose, jasmine, chumpa, oleander, etc., is not sufficient, you can mix a good quantity of mignonette with the leaves on the outside, but, in any case, it is best to sprinkle the whole profusely with rose water. This will make a bouquet fit to present to a Commissioner.
The highest style of art
The BheesteeThemaleehas an ally called theBheestee. If you ask, Who is theBheestee? I will tell you.Behishtin the Persian tongue means Paradise, and aBihishteeis, therefore, an inhabitant of Paradise, a cherub, a seraph, an angel of mercy. He has no wings; the painters have misconceived him; but his back is bowed down with the burden of a great goat-skin swollen to bursting with the elixir of life. He walks the land when the heaven above him is brass and the earth iron, when the trees and shrubs are languishing and the last blade of grass has given up the struggle for life, when the very roses smell only of dust, and all day long the roaring “dust devils” waltz about the fields, whirling leaf and grass and corn stalk round and round and up and away into the regions of the sky; and he unties a leather thong which chokes the throat of his goat-skin just where the head of the poor old goat was cut off, and straight-way, with a life-reviving gurgle, the stream calledthunda paneegushes forth, and plant and shrub lift up their heads and the garden smiles again. The dust also on the roads is laid and a grateful incense rises from the ground, the sides of the water chatty grow dark and moist and cool themselves in the hot air, and through the dripping interstices of thekhuskhustattie a chilly fragrance creeps into the room, causing the mercury in the thermometer to retreat from its proud place. Nay, the seraph finds his way to your very bath-room, and discharging a cataract into the great tub, leaves it heaving like the ocean after a storm. When you follow him there, you will thank that nameless poet who gave our humble Aquarius the title he bears. Surely in the world there can be no luxury like an Indian “tub” after a long march, or a morning’s shooting, in the month of May. I know of none. Wallace says that to eat adurianis a new sensation, worth a voyage to the East to experience. “A rich, butterlike custard, highly flavoured with almonds, gives the best general idea of it, but intermingled with it come wafts of flavour which call to mind cream cheese, onion sauce, brown sherry, and other incongruities.” If this is true, then eating adurianmust, in its way, be something like having a tub. That certainly is a new sensation. I cannot tell what gives the best general idea of it, but there are mingled with it many wafts of a vigorous enjoyment, which touch you, I think, at a higher point in your nature than cream cheese or onion sauce. There is first the enfranchisement of your steaming limbs from gaiter and shooting boot, buckskin and flannel; then the steeping of your sodden head in the pellucid depth, with bubaline snortings and expirations of satisfaction; then, as the first cold stream from the “tinpot” courses down your spine, what electric thrills start from a dozen ganglia and flush your whole nervous system with new life! Finally, there is the plunge and the wallow and the splash, with a feeling of kinship to the porpoise in its joy, under the influence of which the most silent man becomes vocal and makes the walls of the narrowghoosulkhanaresound with amorous, or patriotic, song. A flavour of sadness mingles here, for you must come out at last, but the ample gaol towel receives you in its warm embrace and a glow of contentment pervades your frame, which seems like a special preparation for the soothing touch of cool, clean linen, and white duck, or smoothkhakee. And even before the voice of the butler is heard at the door, your olfactory nerves, quickened by the tonic of the tub, have told you what he is going to say.
Some people in India always bathe in hot water, not for their sins, but because they like it. At least, so they say, and it may be true, for I have been told that you may get a taste even for drinking hot water if you keep at it long enough.
The well
TheBheesteeis the only one of all our servants who never asks for a rise of pay on account of the increase of his family. But he is not like the other servants. We do not think of him as one of the household. We do not know his name, and seldom or never speak to him; but I follow him about, as you would some little animal, and observe his ways. I find that he always stands on his left leg, which is like an iron gate-post, and props himself with his right. I cannot discover whether he straightens out when he goes home at night, but when visible in the daytime, he is always bowed, either under the weight of hismussukor the recollection of it. The constant application of that great cold poultice must surely bring on chronic lumbago, but he does not complain. I notice, however, that his waist is always bound about with many folds of unbleached cotton cloth and other protective gear. The place to study him to advantage is thebowrie, or station well, in a little hollow at the foot of a hill. Of course there are many wells, but some have a bad reputation for guineaworm, and some are brackish, and some are jealously guarded by the Brahmins, who curse theBheesteeif he approaches, and some are for low caste people. This well is used by the station generally, and the water of it is very “sweet.” Any native in the place will tell you that if you drink of this well you will always have an appetite for your meals and digest your food. It is circular and surrounded by a strong parapet wall, over which, if you peep cautiously into the dark abyss, you may catch a sight of the wary tortoise, which shares with a score or so of gigantic frogs the task of keeping the water “sweet.” It was introduced for the purpose by a thoughtfulBheestee: the frogs fell in. Wild pigeons have their nests in holes in the sides of the well. Here, morning and evening, you will find theBheesteesof the station congregated, some coming and some going, like bees at the mouth of a hive, but most standing on the wall and letting down their leather buckets into the water. As they begin to haul these up again hand over hand, you will look to see them all topple head foremost into the well, but they do not as a rule. It makes an imaginative European giddy to look down into that Tartarean depth; but then theBheesteeis not imaginative. As the hot season advances, the water retreats further and further into the bowels of the earth, and the labour of filling themussukbecomes more and more arduous. At the same time, the demand for water increases, for man is thirsty and the ground parched. So the toils of the poorBheesteemarchpari passuwith the tyranny of the climate, and he grows thin and very black. Then, with the rain, his vacation begins. Happy man if his master does not cut his pay down on the ground that he has little to do. We masters sometimes do that kind of thing.
I believe themussukbearer is the true and originalBheestee, but in many places, as wealth and luxury have spread, he has emancipated his own back and laid his burden on the patient bullock, which walks sagaciously before him, and stops at the word of command beside each flower-pot or bush. He treats his slave kindly, hanging little bells andcowriesabout its neck. If it is refractory he does not beat it, but gently reviles its female ancestors. I like theBheesteeand respect him. As a man, he is temperate and contented, eatingbajreebread and slacking his thirst with his own element. The author of Hobson Jobson says he never saw a drunkenBheestee. And as a servant he is laborious and faithful, rarely shirking his work, seeking it out rather. For example, we had a bottle-shaped filter of porous stoneware, standing in a bucket of water, which it was his duty to fill daily; but the good man, not content with doing his bare duty, took the plug out of the filter and filled it too! And all the station knows how assiduously he fills the rain gauge. But what I like best in him is his love of nature. He keeps a tame lark in a very small cage, covered with dark cloth that it may sing, and early in the morning you will find him in the fields, catching grasshoppers for his little pet. I am speaking of a MahomedanBheestee. You must not expect love of nature in a Hindoo.
His little pet
The BarberIn Indiait is not good form to shave yourself. You ought to respect the religious prejudices and social institutions of the people. If everyone shaved himself, how would the Barber’s stomach be filled? The pious feeling which prompts this question lies deep in the heart of Hindoo society. We do not understand it. How can we, with our cold-blooded creed of demand and supply, free trade and competition, fair field and no favour? In this ancient land, whose social system is not a deformed growth, but a finished structure, nothing has been left to chance, least of all a man’s beard; for, cleanliness and godliness not being neighbours here, a beard well matted with ashes and grease is the outward and visible sign of sanctity. And so, in the golden age, when men did everything that is wise and right, there was established a caste whose office it was to remove that sign from secular chins. How impious and revolutionary then must it be for a man who is not a barber to tamper with his own beard, thus taking the bread out of the mouths of barbers born, and blaspheming the wisdom of the ancient founders of civilization! It is true that, during the barbers’ strike a few years ago, the Brahmins, even of orthodox Poona, consecrated a few of their own number to the use of the razor. But desperate diseases demand desperate remedies. When the barbers struck, Nature did not strike. Beards grew as before, and threatened to change the whole face of society. In view of such an appalling crisis who would say anything was unlawful? Besides, British rule is surely undermining the very foundations of society, and I doubt if you could find a Brahmin to-day under fifty years of age whose heart is not more or less corroded by the spirit of change. Your young University man is simply honey-combed: he can scarcely conceal his mind from his own mother or wife.
A happy patientBut I must return to the Barber. The natives call himhujjam. He has been bred so true for a score or so of centuries that shaving must be an instinct with him now. His right hand is as delicate an organ as a foxhound’s nose. I believe that, when inebriated, he goes on shaving, just as a toad deprived of its brain will walk and eat and scratch its nose. If you put a jagged piece of tin into the hand of a babyhujjam, he will scrape his little sister’s face with it. In India, as you know, every caste has its own “points,” and you can distinguish a Barber as easily as adhobieor a Dorking hen. He is a sleek, fair-complexioned man, dressed in white, with an ample red turban, somewhat oval in shape, like a sugared almond. He wears large gold earrings in the upper part of his ears, and has a sort of false stomach, which, at a distance, gives him an aldermanic figure, but proves, on a nearer view, to be made of leather, and to have many compartments, filled with razors, scissors, soap, brush, comb, mirror, tweezers, earpicks, and other instruments of a more or less surgical character; for he is, indeed, a surgeon, and especially an aurist and narist. When he takes a Hindoo head into his charge, he does not confine himself to the chin or scalp, but renovates it all over. The happy patient enjoys the operation, sitting proudly in a public place. When a Barber devotes himself to European heads he rises in the social scale. If he has any real talent for his profession, he soon rises to the rank and title of Tom, and may eventually be presented with a small hot-water jug, bearing an inscription to the effect that it is a token of the respect and esteem in which he was held by the officers of the —th Regiment at the station of Daree-nai-hona. This is equivalent to a C. I. E., but is earned by merit. In truth, Tom is a great institution. He opens the day along with tea and hot toast and theDaree-nai-hona Chronicle, but we throw aside theChronicle. It is all very well if you want to know which band will play at the band-stand this evening, and the leading columns are occasionally excruciatingly good, when a literary corporal of the Fusiliers discusses the political horizon, or unmasks theHerald, pointing out with the most pungent sarcasm how “our virtuous contemporary puts his hands in his breeches pockets, like a crocodile, and sheds tears;” but during the parade season the corporal writes little, and articles by the regular staff, upon the height to which cantonment hedges should be allowed to grow, are apt to be dull. For news we depend on Tom. He appears reticent at first, but be patient. Let him put the soap on, and then tap him gently.
“Well, Tom, what news this morning?”
“No news, sar.” After a long pause, “Commissioner Saheb coming to-morrow.”
“To-morrow? No, he is not coming for three weeks.”
“To-morrow coming. Not telling anybody; quietly coming.”
“Why?”
“God knows.” After another pause, “Nana Shett give Mamletdar 500 rupee for not send his son to prison. Then Nana Shett’s brother he fight with Nana Shett, so he write letter to Commissioner and tell him you come quietly and make inquire.”
“The Mamletdar has been taking bribes, has he?”
“Everybody taking. Fouzdar take 200 rupee. Dipooty take 500 rupee.”
“What! Does the Deputy Collector take bribes?”
“God knows. Black man very bad. All black man same like bad.”
“Then are you not a black man?”
Tom smiles pleasantly and makes a fresh start.
“Colonel Saheb’s madam got baby.”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Girl, sar. Colonel Saheb very angry.”
“Why?”
“He say, ‘I want boy. Why always girl coming?’ Get very angry. Beat butler with stick.”
Tom, the BarberYes, Tom is a great institution. Who can estimate how much we owe to him for the circulation of that lively interest in one another’s well-being which characterises the little station? Tom comes, like the Pundit, in the morning, but he is different from the Pundit and we welcome him. He is not a shadow of the black examination-cloud which lowers over us. There is no flavour of grammars and dictionaries about him. Even if he finds you still in bed, conscience gets no support from him. He does not awaken you, but slips in with noiseless tread, lifts the mosquito curtains, proceeds with his duty and departs, leaving no token but a gentle dream about the cat which came and licked your cheeks and chin with its soft, warm tongue, and scratched you playfully with its claws, while a cold frog, embracing your nose, looked on and smiled a froggy smile. The barber’s handiscold and clammy.Chacun à son gout. I do not like him. I grow my beard, and Tom looks at me as the Chaplain regards dissenters.
Group of people
Nowit is time to close our inspection and order a march past. I think I have marshalled the whole force. It may seem a small band to you, if you have lived in imperial Bengal, for we of Bombay do not generally keep a special attendant to fill and light our pipe, and ourtatoodoes not require a man to cut its grass. Some of us even put on our own clothes. In short, we have not carried the art of living to such oriental perfection as prevails on the other side of India, and a man of simple tastes will find my company of fourteen a sufficient staff. There they are,Sub hazir hai, “they are all present,” the butler says, except one humble, but necessary officer, who does not like to appear. He is known familiarly by many names. You may call him Plantagenet, for his emblem is the lowly broom; but since his modesty keeps him in the background, we will leave him there. The rest are before you, the faithful corps with whose help we transact our exile life. You may look at them from many standpoints, and how much depends on which you take! I suspect the commonest with us masters is that which regards boy, butler,mussaul, cook, as just so many synonyms for channels by which the hard-earned rupee, which is our life-blood, flows from us continually. This view puts enmity between us and them, between our interests and theirs. It does not come into our minds, that when we submit our claim for an extra allowance of Rs. 200 under section 1735 of the Code, and themussaulgets the butler to prefer a humble request for an increase of one rupee a month to his slenderpuggar, we and themussaulare made kin by that one touch of nature. We spurn the request and urge the claim, with equal wonderment at the effrontery ofmussaulsand the meanness of Governments. And “the angels weep.”
Shift your standpoint, and in each cringing menial you will see a black token of that Asiatic metamorphosis through which we all have passed. What a picture! Look at yourself as you stand there in purple sublimity, trailing clouds of darkness from the middle ages whence you come, planting your imperial foot on all the manly traditions of your own free country, and pleased with the grovelling adulations of your trembling serfs. And now it is not the angels who weep, but the Baboo of Bengal. His pale and earnest brow is furrowed with despair as he turns from you. For whither shall he turn? When his bosom palpitates with the intense joy of newborn aspirations for liberty, to whom shall he go if the Briton, the champion of the world’s freedom, has drunk of Comus’s cup and become an oriental satrap? Ah! there is still hope. The “large heart of England” beats still for him. In the land of John Hampden and Labouchere there are thousands yet untainted by the plague, who keep no servant, who will listen to the Baboo while he tells them about you, and perhaps return him to parliament.
There is a third view of the case, fraught with much content to those who can take it, and, happily, it is the only view possible to the primitive intelligences over which we exercise domestic lordship. In this view they are, indeed, as we regard them—so many channels by which the rupee may flow from us; but what are we, if not great reservoirs, built to feed those very channels? And so, with that “sweet reasonableness” which is so pleasant a feature of the Hindoo mind, your boy or butler, being the main conduit, sets himself to estimate the capacity of the reservoir, that he may adapt the gauge of each pipe and regulate the flow. And, as the reservoir grows greater, as the assistant becomes a collector and the collector a commissioner, the pipes are extended and enlarged, and all rejoice together. The moral beauty of this view of the situation grows upon you as you accustom your mind to dwell on it. Is it not pleasant to think of yourself as a beneficent irrigation work, watering a wide expanse of green pasture and smiling corn, or as a well in a happy garden, diffusing life and bloom? Look at the syce’s children. Phil Robinson says there are nine of them, all about the same age and dressed in the same nakedness. As they squat together there, indulging “the first and purest of our instincts” in the mud or dust of the narrow back road, reflect that their tender roots are nourished by a thin rivulet of rupees which flows from you. If you dried up, they would droop and perhaps die. The butler has a bright little boy, who goes to school every day in a red velvet cap and print jacket, with a small slate in his hand, and hopes one day to climb higher in the word than his father. His tendrils are wrapped about your salary. Nay, you may widen the range of your thoughts: the old hut in the environs of Surat, with its patch of field and the giant gourds, acknowledges you, and a small stream, diverted from one of the channels which you supply, is filling a deep cistern in one of the back streets of Goa. Pardon me if I think that the untutored Indian’s thought is better even for us than any which we have framed for ourselves. Imagine yourself as a sportsman, spear in hand, pursuing the wild V.C. through fire and water, or patiently stalking the wary K.C.B., or laying snares for the gentle C.I.E.; or else as a humble industrious dormouse lining a warm nest for the winter of your life in Bath or Tunbridge Wells; or as a gay butterfly flitting from flower to flower while the sunshine of your brief day may last; or simply as a prisoner toiling at the treadmill because you must: the well in the garden is a pleasanter conception than all these and wholesomer. Foster it while you may. Now that India has wakened up and begun to spin after the rest of the great world down the ringing grooves of change, these tints of dawn will soon fade away, and in the light of noon the instructed Aryan will learn to see and deplore the monstrous inequalities in the distribution of wealth. He will come to understand the essential equality of all men, and the real nature of the contract which subsists between master and servant. Yes, I am afraid the day is fast drawing near when you will no longer venture to cut thehamal’spay for letting mosquitoes into your bed curtains and he will no longer join his palms and call you his father and mother for doing so. What a splendid capacity for obedience there is in this ancient people! And our relations with them have certainly taught us again how to govern, which is one of the forgotten arts in the West. Where in the world to-day is there a land so governed as this Indian Empire?
And now each man wants his “character” before he makes his lastsalaam, and what shall I say? “The bearer — has been in my service since — and I have always found him — ” So far good; but what next? Honest?—Yes. Willing?—Certainly. Careful?—Very. Hardworking?—Well, I have often told him that he was a lazy scoundrel, and that he might easily take a lesson in activity from thebheestee’sbullock, and perhaps I spoke the truth. But, after all, he gets up in the morning an hour before me, and eats his dinner after I have retired for the night. He gets no Saturday half-holiday, and my Sabbath is to him as the other days of the week. And so the hard things I have said of him and to him are forgotten, and charity triumphs at the last. And when my furlough is over and I return to these shores, the whole troop will be at the Apollo Bunder, waiting to welcome back their old master and eat his salt again.
A cow
Gopal, theGowlee, haunts me in my dreams, complaining that he has been left out in the cold. I had classed him with theborahand the baker, as outsiders with whom I had merely business relations; but Gopal seems to urge that he is not on the same footing with these. How can he be compared to a mercenaryborah? Has he not ministered to my wants, morning and evening, in wet weather and dry? Have not my children grown up on his milk? He will not deny that they have eaten the baker’s bread too; but who is the baker? Does he come into thesaheb’spresence in person as Gopal does? No. He sits in his shop and sends a servant. Not so Gopal. He is one of my children, and I am his father and mother. And I am forced to admit there is some truth in this view of the case. The ill-favoured man who haunts my house of a morning, with a large basket of loaves poised slantwise on his head, and converses in a strange nasal brogue with the cook, is not Mr. de Souza, “baker of superior first and second sort bread, and manufacturer of every kind of biscuit, cake,” &c., but a mere underling. My intercourse with the head of the firm is confined to the first day of each month, when he waits on me in person, dressed in a smart black jacket, and presents his bill. Also on Good Friday he sends me a cake and his compliments, but the former, if it is not intercepted by the butler and applied to his own uses, is generally too unctuous for my taste. Very different are our relations with theDoodwallah. Ourchota hazreewaits for him in the morning; our afternoon tea cannot proceed till he comes; the baby cries if theDoodwallahis late. And even if you are one of the few who strike for independence and keep their own cow, I still counsel you to maintain amicable relations with theDoodwallah. One day the cow will kick and refuse to be milked, and the butler will come to you with a troubled countenance. It is a grave case and demands professional skill. TheDoodwallahmust be sent for to milk the cow. In many other ways, too, we are made to feel our dependence on him. I believe we rarely die of cholera, or typhoid fever, without his unobtrusive assistance. And all his services are performed in person, not through any underling. That stately man who walks up the garden path morning and evening, erect as a betel-nut palm, with a tiara of graduated milk-pots on his head, and driving a snorting buffalo before him, is Gopal himself. Scarcely any other figure in the compound impresses me in the same way as his. It is altogether Eastern in its simple dignity, and symbolically it is eloquent. The buffalo represents absolute milk and the lessening pyramid of brasslotas, from the great two-gallon vessel at the base to the ¼-seer measure at the top, stand for successive degrees of dilution with that pure element which runs in the roadside ditches after rain. Thus his insignia interpret themselves to me. Gopal does not acknowledge my heraldry, but explains that the lowestlotacontains butter milk—that is to say, milk for making butter. The second contains milk which is excellent for drinking, but will not yield butter; the third a cheaper quality of milk for puddings, and so on. If you are an anxious mother, or a fastidious bachelor, and none of these will please you, then he brings the buffalo to the door and milks it in your presence. I think the truth which underlies the two ways of putting the thing is the same: Gopal and I differ in form of words only. However that may be, practice is more than theory, and I stipulate for milk for all purposes from the lowestlota—that is, milk which is warranted to yield butter. If it will not stand that test, I reject it. Gopal wonders at my extravagance, but consents. The milk is good and the butter from it plentiful. But as time goes on the latter declines both in quantity and quality, so gradually that suspicion is scarcely awakened. When at last you summon the butler to a consultation, he suggests that the weather has been too hot for successful butter making, or too cold. If these reasons do not satisfy you, he has others; if they fail, he gives his verdict against theDoodwallah. Next morning Gopal is called to superintend the making of the butter and convicted, convicted but not abashed. He expresses the greatest regret, but blames the buffalo; its calf is too old. To-morrow you shall have the produce of another buffalo. So next day you have the satisfaction of seeing a fine healthy pat of butter swimming in the butter dish, carved and curled with all the butler’s art, like a full-blown dahlia. But the milk in your tea does not improve, for Gopal, after ascertaining how much milk you set aside for butter every day, finds that the new buffalo yields only that quantity, and so what you require for other purposes comes from another source. The butler forgot to tell you this. What bond is there between him and honest Gopal? I cannot tell. Many are the mysteries of housekeeping in India, and puzzling its problems. If you could behead your butler when anything went wrong, I have very little doubt everything would go right, but the complicated methods of modern justice are no match for the subtleties of Indian petty wickedness. And yet under this crust of cunning there is a vein of simple stupidity which constantly crops up where you least expect it. I remember a gentleman, a bachelor, who set before himself a very high standard. He would be strictly just and justly strict. He suspected that his milk was watered, but his faithful boy protested that this could not be, as the milking was begun and finished in his presence. So the master provided himself with a lactometer, and the suspicion became certainty. Summoning his boy into his presence, he explained to him that that little instrument, which he saw floating in the so-called milk before him, could neither lie nor be deceived. “It declares,” he added sternly, “that there is twenty-five per cent. of water in this milk.” “Your lordship speaks the truth,” answered the faithful man, “but how could I tell a lie? The milk was drawn in my presence.” “Do you mean to say you were there the whole time the animal was being milked?” “The whole time, your lordship. Would I give those rogues the chance of watering thesaheb’smilk?” The master thought for a moment, and asked again, “Are you sure there was no water in the pail before the milking began?—these people are very cunning.” “They are as cunning assheitan, your lordship, but I made the man turn the pail upside down and shake it.” Again the master turned the matter over in his just mind, and it occurred to him that the lactometer was of English manufacture and might be puzzled by the milk of the buffalo. “Is this cow’s milk, or buffalo’s?” he asked. The boy was beginning to feel his position uncomfortable and caught at this chance of escape. “Ah! that I cannot tell. It may be buffalo’s milk.”Tableau.
The Doodwallahs—Milkmen
I have spoken of having butter made in the house, but Gopal carries on all departments of a dairyman’s business, and you may buy butter of him at two annas a “cope.” Let philologists settle the derivation of the word. The “cope” is a measure like a small tea-cup, and when Gopal has filled it, he presses the butter well down with his hand, so that a man skilled in palmistry may read the honest milkman’s fortune off any cope of his butter. How he makes it, or of what materials, I dare not say. Many flavours mingle in it, some familiar enough, some unknown to me. Its texture varies too. Sometimes it is pasty, sometimes semi-fluid, sometimes sticky, following the knife. In colour it is bluish-white, unless dyed. All things considered, I refuse Gopal’s butter, and have mine made at home. The process is very simple, and no churn is needed. Every morning the milk for next day’s butter is put into a large flat dish, to stand for twenty-four hours, at the end of which time, if the dish is as dirty as it should be, the milk has curdled. Then, with a tin spoon, Mukkun skims off the cream and puts it into a large pickle bottle, and squatting on the ground,more suo, bumps the bottle upon a pad until the butter is made. The artistic work of preparing it for presentation remains. First it is dyed yellow with a certain seed, that it may please thesaheb’staste, for buffalo butter is quite white, and you know it is an axiom in India that cow’s milk does not yield butter. Then Mukkun takes a little bamboo instrument and patiently works the butter into a “flower” and sends it to breakfast floating in cold water.
Gopal is a man of substance, owning many buffaloes and immensely fat Guzerat cows, with prodigious humps and large pendent ears. His family, having been connected for many generations with the sacred animal, he enjoys a certain consciousness of moral respectability, like a man whose uncles are deans or canons. In my mind, he is always associated rather with his buffaloes, those great, unwieldy, hairless, slate-coloured docile, intelligent antediluvians.
Home butter making
The Kalai-wallahI have yielded to the claim of thedoodwallahto be reckoned among thenowkers. His right is more than doubtful, and I will yield no further. Nevertheless, there is a cluster of petty dependents, a nebula of minor satellites, which have us for the focus of their orbit, and which cannot be left out of a comprehensive account of our system. Whence, for example, is that raucus stridulation which sets every tooth on edge and sends a rheumatic shiver up my spine? “It is only theKalai-wallah,” says the boy, and points to a muscular black man, very nearly in the garb of a Grecian athlete, standing with both feet in one of my largest cooking pots. He grasps a post with both hands, and swings his whole frame fiercely from side to side with a circular motion, like the balance wheel of a watch. He seems to have a rough cloth and sand under his feet, so I suppose this is only his energetic way of scouring the pot preparatory to tinning it, for theKalai-wallahis the “tin-man,” whose beneficent office it is to avert death by verdigris and salts of copper from you and your family. His assistant, a semi-nude, fleshless youth, has already extemporized a furnace of clay in the ground hard by, and is working a huge pair of clumsy bellows. Around him are all manner of copper kitchen utensils,handies, ordeckshies, kettles, frying-pans, and what not, and there are also on the ground some rings ofkalai, commonly called tin; but pure tin is an expensive metal, and I do not think it is any part of theKalai-wallah’scare to see that you are not poisoned with lead. One notable peculiarity there is in thisKalai-wallah, or tin-man, which deserves record, namely, that he pays nodustooreeto any man. I take it as sufficient evidence of this fact that, though even thematiecould tell you that the pots ought to be tinned once a month, neither the butler nor the cook ever seems to remember when the day comes round. This is a matter which you must see to personally. Contrast with this the case of theNalbund, the clink of whose hammer in the early morning tells that the 15th of the month has dawned. His portable anvil is already in the ground, and he is hammering the shoes into shape after a fashion; but he is not very particular about this, for if the shoe does not fit the hoof he can always cut the hoof to fit the shoe. This is an advantage which the maker of shoes for human feet does not enjoy, though I have heard of very fashionable ladies who secretly have one toe amputated that the rest may more easily be squeezed into that curious pointed thing, which, by some mysterious process of mind, is regarded as an elegant shoe. But this is by the way. To return to theNalbund. His work is guaranteed to last one calendar month, and your faithfulghorawallah, who remembers nothing else, and scarcely knows the day of the week, bears in mind the exact date on which the horse has to be shod next, and if the carelessNalbunddoes not appear, promptly goes in search of him. Does not this speak volumes for the efficiency of that venerable and wonderful institutiondustooree, by which the interests of all classes are cemented together and the wheels of the social system are oiled? The shoeing of the bullock is generally a distinct profession, I believe, from the shoeing of the horse, and is not considered such a high art. The poorbyleis thrown, and, his feet being tied together, the assistant holds his nose to the ground, while the master nails a small slip of bad iron to each half of the hoof. I often stop on my way to contemplate this spectacle, which beautifully illustrates that cold patience, or natural thick-skinnedness, which fits thebyleso admirably for his lot in this land. He is yoked to a creaking cart and prodded with a sharp nail to make him go, his female ancestry reviled to the third generation, his belly tickled with the driver’s toes, and his tail twisted till the joints crack, but he plods patiently on till he feels disposed to stop, and then he lies down and takes with an even mind such cudgelling as the enraged driver can inflict. At last a fire of straw is lighted under him, and then he gets up and goes on. He never grows restive or frets, as a horse would, and so he does not wear out. This is the reason why bullocks are used throughout India for all agricultural purposes. The horse does not suit the genius of the people. I wish horses in India could do without shoes. In sandy districts, like Guzerat, they can, and are much better unshod; but in the stony Deccan some protection is absolutely necessary, and the poor beast is often at the mercy of the village bullockNalbund. It carries my thoughts to the days of our forefathers, when the blacksmith was also the dentist.
Nalbund
GrasswallahTheNalbundleads naturally to theGhasswallah, or grass-man, whose sign is a mountain of green stuff, which comes nodding in at the back gate every day upon four emaciated legs. A small pony’s nose protrudes from the front, with a muzzle on, for in such matters the spirit of the law of Moses is not current in this country. The mild Hindoo does muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. His religion forbids him to take life, and he obeys, but he steers as near to that sin as he can, without actually committing it, and vitality is seen here at a lower ebb, perhaps, than in any other country under the sun. The grassman maintains just so much flesh on the bones of his beast as will suffice to hold them together under their burden, and this can be done without lucerne grass, so poor Tantalus toddles about, buried under a pile of sweet-scented, fresh, green herbage, ministering to the sleek aristocracy of his own kind, and returns to gnaw his daily allowance ofkurbee. There is, however, one alleviation of his lot for which he may well be thankful, and that is that his burden so encompasses him about that the stick of his driver cannot get at any part of him. I believe theGhasswallahis an institution peculiar to our presidency—this kind ofGhasswallah, I mean, who is properly a farmer, owning large well-irrigated fields of lucerne grass. Hay is supplied by another kind ofGhasswallah, who does not keep a pony, but brings the daily allowance on his head. That allowance is fivepoleesfor each horse. Apoleeis a bundle of grass about as thick as a tree, and as long as a bit of string. This hay merchant does a large business, and used to send in a monthly bill to each of his constituents in due form, thus:—
To Hurree Ganesh,
January.
Mr. Esmith, Esquire
Dr.
To supplying grass to one horse
Rs.
7
0
0
Ditto to ½ horse
3
8
0
Total
Rs.
10
8
0
E. E.& contents received.
The ½ horse was a cow.
ShirakeeAs the monsoon draws to a close and the weather begins to get colder, a man in a tight brown suit and leather belt, with an unmistakable flavour of sport about him, presents himself at the door. This is theshikareecome withkhubberof “ishnap,” and quail, and duck, and in fact of anything you like up to bison and tiger. But we must dismiss him to-day. He would require a chapter to himself, and would take me over ground quite outside of my present scope. What aloochahe is!
Ready-made-clothes WallahWhat shall I say of theRoteewallahand theJooteewallah, who comes round so regularly to keep your boots and shoes in disrepair, and of all the vociferous tribe ofborahs? There is theKupprawallah, and theBoxwallah, and theReady-made-clotheswallah(“readee made cloes mem sa-ab! dressin’ gown, badee, petticoat, drars, chamees, everyting, mem sa-ab, very che-eap!”) and theChowchowwallahand theMaiwawallahor fruit man, with his pleasant basket of pomeloes and oranges, plantains, red and white, custard apples, guavas, figs, grapes, and pineapples, and those suspicious-looking old iron scales, hanging by greasy, knotted strings. Each of these good people, it seems, lives in this hard world for no other end but to supply my wants. One of them is positive that he supplied my father with the necessaries of life before I was born.SindworkwallahHe is by appearance about eighteen years of age, but this presents no difficulty, for if it was not he who ministered to my parent, it was his father, and so he has not only a personal, but a hereditary claim on me. He is aworkboxwallah, and is yearning to show his regard for me by presenting me with a lady’s sandalwood dressing-case in return for the trifling sum of thirty-five rupees. Thesindworkwallah, who has a similar esteem for me, scorns the thought of wishing to sell, but if I would just look at some of his beautiful things, he could go away happy. When they are all spread upon the ground, then it occurs to him that I have it in my power to make him lucky for the day by buying a fancy smoking-cap, which, by-the-by, he brought expressly for me. But this subject always makes me sad, for there is no disguising the fact that theborahis fast passing away for ever, and with him all the glowing morning tints of that life which we used to live when India was still India. But let that regret pass. Onewallahremains, who presents himself at your door, not monthly, or weekly, but every day, and often twice a day, and not at the back verandah, but at the front, walking confidently up to the very easy-chair on which we stretch our lordly limbs. And I may safely say that, of all who claim directly or indirectly to have eaten our salt, there is not a man for whom we have, one and all of us, a kindlier feeling. You may argue that he is only a public servant, and has really far less claim on us than any of the others; never mind—
“I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood.”
“I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood.”
CoolieThe English mail is in, and we feel, and will feel, towards that red-livened man as Noah felt towards the dove with the olive branch in her mouth. And when Christmas comes round, howsoever we may harden ourselves against others, scarcely one of us, I know, will grudge a rupee to thetapalwallah.
Finis