A Life Apart (8 page)

She remembers those painful visits with Miss Shepherd, Colonel Campbell’s wife and Mr Fearfield’s wife – all members of the Madras Ladies’ Club – to the Maharani
of Mysore a few years ago. The process leading up to those visits itself comprised a story. For months she had importuned James and Sir George to do something about the Indian women of the
Presidency: where were they? why didn’t they come, along with their husbands, to any of the events to which they were invited? why did only the men turn up? why were they so rigidly secluded?
could the Anglos not do anything to break this down? James had patiently explained to her the status of women in Indian society. Well, then, if men posed so many threats and problems to them,
surely the English ladies could do something? Send out an invitation for a ‘Ladies Only’ at the Club? Once again, James had explained to her, in his very patient and forbearing way, the
problems Indian men had exposing their wives to foreigners. But surely they wouldn’t have problems ‘exposing’ them to foreign women? At which point James had thrown up his hands
in despair and said if she wanted to so much, why didn’t she try, along with the other ladies of the Presidency, and see where they got. There was a stiff little lecture on how damnedest the
Raj had tried to do away with barbaric Indian customs like
suttee, purdah
, the evils of
zenana
, the way Indian men treated their women as chattel, and if the bloody obstinate men were
not going to allow them to meet their wives, he was damned if he was going to allow them to meet English ladies.

Ah.

So Miss Gilby, accompanied by the more stalwart and interested ladies, had set about getting to know these invisible Indian women. As sister of the District Collector, she sent out
invitations for an ‘At Home’. Nearly no one bothered to reply. The chicken galantine with aspic jelly, cucumber sandwiches, anchovy and salad sandwiches, rout cakes, the proud madeira
cake, petits fours, mango and custard apple ices – all the lovely things she and Iris Shepherd had planned so excitedly from their new Mrs Beeton had come to nothing. The most articulate of
the refusals was sent to James. ‘Dear Sir,’ it said, ‘as my wife does not know English, she desires me to write this to you, regarding the “At Home” this evening. My
wife is extremely thankful to Mr’ – and then an ‘s’ added in ink after the typewritten ‘Mr’ – ‘Gilby for graciously extending the invitation to her,
but regrets very much that as according to the prevailing custom of the country, no Hindu lady is likely to attend the party, she is afraid to be the solitary exception to it. Moreover, she will
feel herself completely stranded in the midst of strangers, and would, I am afraid, make an awkward nuisance of herself as she has never attended a party in all her life, least of all one hosted by
English gentlemen and ladies. She, therefore, sincerely regrets that she is unable to oblige and sends her heartfelt apologies etc etc.’

Miss Gilby’s first thought was, God, if we haven’t given them anything else, we certainly have given them our language of evasiveness, and then, ashamed of this uncharitable and
unusual flare-up in her generally kind soul, she began to comprehend the real problems the letter had expressed. How would the English and the native ladies communicate, how would she go about in
her crusade of breaking down barriers, if they did not share a common tongue? It was of utmost importance that Indian ladies be educated in English. From there everything would follow, as the night
the day.

The goal proved much more elusive than Miss Gilby had initially reckoned it to be. Like a mirage, it kept receding further and further, not just out of her reach but, it seemed, almost a
thousand miles away. The problem was this: how did you go about educating Indian women if you didn’t get to see them in the first place? But what would be the purpose of access if the two
sides couldn’t talk to each other? She felt she was being whirled around in a giant cartwheel that had no beginning, no end, only a frustrating, endless going around in circles. James just
grunted his ‘See, I told you so’ grunt and said things were best left as they stood; these Indian women were never going to be let out of their prison by their men. They played by very
different rules here and why didn’t Maud just leave these things well alone and concentrate instead on other things.

What other things?

Oh, well, the Hart-Davises were having a polo week in Hyderabad, wouldn’t she like to go?

And what would she do there?

Well, erm, she could watch, couldn’t she?

Well, Indian social traditions and the frosty complacency of the Raj hadn’t quite reckoned with the stubbornness of Miss Gilby. She pleaded, argued, debated, threatened, quarrelled,
cajoled till she had extracted from her brother a firm promise to write to his friend (well, kind of friend), the Maharajah of Mysore, and wield his influence to get Miss Gilby and a few of her
friends into his household to mingle with the ladies.

The first meeting had seen Jane Fearfield, Iris Shepherd and Maud Gilby, excited and nervous as girls on the eve of their stepping-out ball, traverse a distance of more than three hundred
miles by train and then received by the Maharajah’s carriage to be driven a liver-jostling five miles or so to the palace where the ladies would stay as royal guests for three nights. The
ladies could not forget – how could they? they had been told so many times by so many different sets of people – the trouble James, a few other high-ranking Raj officials and His
Highness the Maharajah of Mysore had been through to ensure this meeting. Rules had been broken on both sides, and rules, both spoken and unspoken, dense legions of them, had to be observed
meticulously in this rare conjunction across the divide. The English ladies were to stick resolutely to the women’s quarters of the palace, they were not to drink alcohol or ask for it, there
would be one Anglo and two Indian guards escorting them to the palace and staying in the servants’ quarters while they visited. The ladies had even been given a short, concentrated course on
household customs in both Hindu and Muslim families so that they didn’t fall into easy errors, humiliating or offensive, to which an unfamiliarity with the dizzying sets of rules could easily
have led them.

The meetings hadn’t gone well from the very outset, when Jane Fearfield, the newest and the youngest member of their informal little club, hadn’t been able to control her giggling
fit at being garlanded with flowers as soon as they had stepped across the threshold.

Not a single lady in the Maharajah of Mysore’s family spoke or understood English. This was the first thing they had been told by a palace official – old and elaborately turbaned,
with his eyes permanently focused on something an inch or so away from his feet – who was going to double as interpreter during the ‘honourable’ ladies’ visit to His
Highness’s ‘humble abode’.

Never mind, Miss Gilby thought, while watching Jane fidget with the silk and muslin handkerchieves they had been given as honoured guests of the Maharajah, delicate pieces of cloth doused to
saturation point with some heavy
attar
– roses or maybe jasmine, but at this concentration it was impossible to tell – which immediately made the head reel and the temples clutch
with the slow beginnings of an obstinate headache. Never mind their inability to speak English, Miss Gilby thought; the main thing was to meet, exchange news and views and become familiar, although
how this was going to be done without a common language, she did not ask herself, instead choosing to pin her hopes on the interpreter and even on Iris Shepherd who had boasted she could hold a
conversation in Hindi and understand some rudimentary Urdu.

The room, or rather, the enormous hall where the meeting was going to take place was similarly perfumed, from a mixture of incense,
attar
, and the rose petals which had been strewn
everywhere. The English ladies had tried to imagine what the insides of an Indian palace would be like; they had even read or been told about the ostentation of wealth and artistry in these
palaces, but nothing had prepared them for this sumptuous feast of grandeur which made the senses swoon and assaulted them from so many quarters – the viscous fragrances, the monotone of the
threnody being played on some mournful stringed instrument by a hidden player, the sea of colours, fabrics, jewels, ornaments, tapestry, curtains, rugs, pillars, chandeliers – that there
wasn’t very much else to do except to obscure large sections of it in order not to drown in this gilded and marbled symphony of excess.

The Indian women, eleven in all – Miss Gilby had done a swift count while the seating formalities were being taken care of by the interpreter – were seated on piles of velvet
cushions and fabrics arranged on the marble floor into a separate section of the room. Two chaise longues and four elaborate
chowpaya
s, all blue silk and gold embroidery and carved wood, had
been arranged opposite this so that the two contingents of women faced each other. Between them, rose petals lying like wounds on the white marble, above them, the frozen crystal fountain of a
chandelier. And the interpreter, somewhere out of sight, in one of the many shadows which stalked and lingered in the room despite the profusion of mirrors, chandeliers, candelabra, the fractured
brilliance of glasswork.

For a while, all of Miss Gilby’s attention was taken by the flash and fire of the jewels on the Indian women. Even their clothes were heavy with gold threads and wires, teeth of pearl,
their fingers and hands dipped into the heart of Hindustan’s treasures and just withdrawn. There was gold around their necks – chokers, collars, necklaces and chains, which fell in
solid waves down their fronts, sometimes to their waists. They wore gold flowers on their toes, paisley-shaped earrings that covered their entire ears, and when they moved their hands, diamonds
would carelessly catch a stray beam of light and send out an angry flare as if to remind everyone of their presence. And on the dark black skin of the women the metals and stones came into secret
lives of their own which they hid from other, paler people. It was almost as if the darkness had put on a special fireworks show for the visitors – the jewellery accentuated their black skin
while the fire of stones and metals made the skin a darker shade of night.

Miss Gilby hoped she hadn’t stared rudely at these decorated women for that was exactly what they were doing, unabashed, unashamed. Eleven pairs of huge, dark eyes stared unblinking at
the English women as though they were exotic or mythical birds they had heard about all their lives and which had just been put up on captive display.

Dazzled, literally, by the jewels, Miss Gilby came late to the realization that one of the princesses, hardly more than a girl, eleven or twelve maybe, was giggling shamelessly at the
foreigners while a stately queen, perhaps some dowager maharani, maybe even Her Highness herself, was trying to shut her up.

‘
Hanso mat
,’ she ordered, her kohl-lined eyes flashing fire. This was a woman born to command, her lazy, cushion-propped body breathing arrogance and majesty through every
pore.

‘Don’t laugh,’ the interpreter dutifully translated, either unaware of the parties involved in that short exchange or untutored in the rules of interpreting.

The elderly woman now broke out into her own language clearly directed at the minister to translate. After she finished, he droned, ‘Her Highness welcomes the English ladies to her
court on this auspicious day. She is honoured that such esteemed ladies are condescending to visit her humble abode and hopes that they find everything to their liking.’

Iris Shepherd replied with the necessary formalities. Quickwitted, that woman, Miss Gilby thought.

Then there was a long silence during which two of the Indian women started whispering to each other. A third joined in, leaning over one of the older women. This seemed to cause no offence to
the woman who was being used as a physical support to join, as it were, the two whispering camps. And there seemed to be no attempt to disguise or hide the fact they were talking about the three
Englishwomen: they stared and then turned around to whisper; often they looked at their English guests askance while breathing out their words into someone’s ear. While this open display of
whispering was in progress, Miss Gilby decided to introduce her party.

‘I am sure Her Highness has been informed about us but I thought I would take this opportunity to do so ourselves.’ She pointed to Iris Shepherd and said, ‘This is Miss Iris
Shepherd . . . ’

Before she could finish, a peacock flew into the room from somewhere, stalked a few rose petals, and then, with a harsh scream that made Jane drop her scented handkerchiefs and start out of
her chaise longue, deposited unfeasibly large amounts of faeces on the marbled floor and ran to the end of the room that gave out on to the courtyard.

It was mayhem from that point. Miss Gilby and Miss Shepherd properly looked away and fixed their gazes on the Indian contingent, pretending that this was an everyday occurrence that did not
merit even the briefest of pauses in the conversation. Miss Gilby continued with the introductions but didn’t progress beyond two or three more words because the Indian women had broken into
uncontrollable laughter, accompanied by hoots and shrieks. A young girl stood up and ran out, laughing hysterically, the thin music of her jangling chains and bangles chasing after her. Another
girl stood up and tried to make loud noises of disgust, shaking her hands as though she was trying to rid them of excess water, but was overwhelmed by mirth and subsided helplessly into the arms of
another hysterical woman. Over this cacophony of raucous and uninhibited laughter, the Maharani was trying to summon a seriousness, which was clearly eluding her. Her face was oddly poised between
laughter at one moment, disapproving frowns the next. The interpreter had meanwhile moved into everyone’s field of vision and was bowing to Her Highness, clearly awaiting instructions from
her.