Hindoo Holiday (36 page)

Looking down on this gruesome scene, I was suddenly back in the dawn of May 3rd, 1917, advancing under fire with my orderly against the German position in the village of Cérisy in France. It was twilight, and we were following our barrage up the slope of a hill, darting from shell-hole to shell-hole in short spurts as the curtain of fire lifted and moved forward. Resting in one of these shell-holes in this inferno with my orderly, of whom I was both proud and fond, I noticed a strange movement on the crepuscular skyline of the hill, some fifty yards ahead, and regarding it intently for some time, made it out to be the moving arms of a man, presumably a wounded German, who must be lying on his back. I could not see his body, only the arms, which rose high in the air and fell, rose and fell, in the most strange and desolate rhythm, like a man trying to keep warm in slow motion, or the last wing-beats of a dying bird—or the weak wavings of this fly's legs. Then I noticed that my orderly had left me and was rushing up the slope ahead. I was astonished and angry; his strict duty was at my side. I yelled at him, but he paid no heed—if, indeed, in that appalling racket, he ever heard. What on earth could he be doing? It was soon and shockingly evident. Quite careless, apparently, of danger, which, as he approached our barrage, became doubly grave, I saw him, silhouetted against the flashing explosions, reach and stoop over the wounded German, poke the muzzle of his rifle into the man's body and pull the trigger. The rising arms hovered for a moment, then finally fell. Even then I did not entirely twig, until my orderly came leisurely back to rejoin me, a smile of deep satisfaction on his handsome face, and held out to my inspection a German officer's revolver, field-glasses, wrist-watch and cigarette case. He had murdered the wounded man in order to rob him. “Souvenir!” he said, smiling at me.

When the ant had dragged the fly close to the entrance to its subterranean abode, other ants came forward to help carry it in. But the fly was too bulky for the narrow crevice, and after some attempts had been made to squeeze it through, it was rapidly dismembered outside, while it still lived, and carted down in sections to the underworld.

I do not know whether clothes are ever mended in Chhokrapur; at any rate European garments seem to be worn until, like the waistcoat of Babaji Rao's tonga-driver, they gradually disappear in decay. The court tailor, a lean man with steel spectacles, certainly has no experience of socks. Finding my own supply
in extremis
the other day I sent him four pairs to be mended, and it was quite a week before he brought them back, and laying them appropriately at my feet, murmured:

“Huzoor! It was very difficult.”

When I had inspected them I showed them to Babaji Rao, who was then still with us.

“What in the world does he think is the good of that?” I asked.

The holes in the socks had not been drawn together. Instead, with infinite care and patience, the finest cobweb of thread had been laid over them, so that when I pulled the socks over my hand the color of my flesh was plainly visible.

“He says he has done his best,” interpreted Babaji Rao, “and does not wish to be paid unless you are satisfied.”

“And if I
am
satisfied?”

“As much as you care to give. But your satisfaction is what he will value most.”

This was altogether too delicate, I thought, for the application of truth, I gave satisfaction and money, and left correction to my successors. And I now observe that such Chhokrapurians as wear socks and stockings do not have them mended. A hole merely serves to remind them that a new pair will soon be needed, and when the hole has so spread that most of the sole and heel are worn away, the new pair is purchased and put on under the old pair to prolong the former's life. Shoes, too, are never mended. The peasant wears a shoe peculiar to the Province, with an upturned toe and a large leather shield in front to protect him from snakes and scorpions when working in the fields; it is very cheap, and to mend it would cost far more, no doubt, than to buy another pair. But Narayan and Sharma, who are always shod though seldom hosed, would not wear such clogs, of course; they now favor an American shoe, obtainable in Bombay at sixteen shillings a pair, because it has a roomy toe for broad Indian feet. It is styled “Derby,” and these two boys wear their “Derbys” until they are absolute wreckage under their feet, and then they buy another pair.

Hindoos require no furniture; even the bed (the
charpai
) is only a luxury for the well-to-do, and can be dispensed with, and its place supplied with straw and a blanket. But chairs, and therefore tables, are rarely used in Chhokrapur, and then uneasily. When a man is tired of standing up he squats on his heels, like Habib in his portrait.

In this position he can remain for hours, and take his food or write his letters on the floor. It is very economic, and it seems a pity that Europeans have lost this simple use of their legs and burdened themselves instead with property and the class distinctions of property—special seats for special bottoms. Clothes, no doubt, make a difference; but now that trousers are so much baggier, there seems no reason why we should not, with a little practice, reacquire the habit of dropping down upon our heels, which would be very useful when we are waiting in queues or are fatigued in the street; and in course of time, perhaps, we should gradually rid ourselves of much of the property which we now consider indispensable.

Narayan, when he comes to visit me, sits on a chair at my side, but it is never very long before he grows uncomfortable, and he always ends by drawing up his feet on to the seat of the chair. He did this morning, and I noticed that a piece of common string was twined round each of his big toes.

“What is that for?” I asked, pointing.

“I have a pain in my testicle,” he said.

He explained that his father, who is a physician, had told him that this was a good remedy, since the testicles and the big toes were connected. Apropos of this, he remarked, after a pause:

“There was semen in your water this morning.”

“Was there indeed? And how do you know?”

“The sweeper, she show the pot to Hashim and me before she empty,” he replied gravely.

“I see,” I said. “And what do you make of that?”

“They say here that you are a
sannyasi
.”

“What is that?”

“He is a man who give up all worldly things, everything, everything.”

“Well, I assure you I'm not,” I replied.

“I think yes,” he said.

No one would think, to look at them, that squirrels are sacred animals, but they are.

Krishna loved them, Narayan says, and used to take them from the trees into his arms and stroke them.

That is why they have four dark lines down their backs from head to tail; for Krishna, as the name implies, was very dark-skinned, and these are the marks of his fingers. His Highness, however, with whom I drove this afternoon, had never heard of this legend and appeared to discredit it. The squirrel was certainly sacred, he said, but because Hanuman, the Monkey-headed, once took on its guise when he went on a journey to rescue Rama's wife from the demon Ravana.

“Why has the bulbul got a red bottom?” I asked.

“They are
clerks
,” replied His Highness promptly. “They are of the Kayastha or Clerk caste, who are all rogues, and so God cursed them in this way and gave them red bottoms so that all other birds poke fun at them.”

Narayan had never heard of this legend and appeared to discredit it.

It was recently full moon, and I used to go every night before sleeping to gaze at the Palace buildings from the Raj Ghat. The serene surface of the lake, still unappreciably diminished when the smaller tanks were drying up, reflected the short line of low white buildings on its opposite shore, with their domes,
chhatris
and minarets overhung by heavy foliaged trees —but reflected it mistily, as though the sharp contrast between moonlight and shade above had run together in the water below. Everything was so peaceful and so still. The air was heavy with the sweet scent of the
sajna
trees around me, in the shadows of which cows lay placidly in the dust. Fireflies glimmered above them, frogs and crickets filled the night with small sounds, and only the great radiant moon gave light, overflowing and spilling upon the world. On the gleaming face of the water not a ripple moved to disturb that other city below its brink, hardly less real, it sometimes seemed to me, than the one above.

“Four days of moonlight—then darkness,” say the Hindoos, sadly contemplating life.

“What does it mean?” asked His Highness gloomily, throwing a long envelope on to my knees.

The letter I found inside was headed “The Universal Astrological & Statistical Bureau of Indore,” and professed to be His Highness's health chart up to the end of his present (fifty-eighth) year, with forecasts up to the end of his sixty-first year. It was a remarkable document, illiterate and badly typed, in blue and red inks, on a special trade paper with advertisements down the margin.

“May it please your Gracious Highness . . .” it started, and then proceeded in a manner which was scarcely likely to do any such thing.

From the beginning of the Maharajah's fifty-eighth year he was to suffer a gradual decline in health and strength, which would continue unabated for some years and culminate, probably in death, at the end of his sixty-first year. At that time, observed the prognosticator, there would be such a “choking up,” from one cause or another, of all his organs—heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, etc.—as to render them functionless. Much might be done to postpone the fatal date by dieting, by propitiating evil spirits, and by keeping the system clear “with the help of a purge or enema.”

But, said the writer, during his fifty-eighth year he need not alarm himself—which, since His Highness is already nearly fifty-nine, was small comfort to him.

During it he would be afflicted indeed with sundry minor ailments, such as slight fevers, coughs, colds, and boils; but these were only the first symptoms of the great decline; nothing grave would happen to him in his fifty-eighth year.

And so that he might know when to expect these boils and chills, the writer had approximately dated them, dividing up into periods of sickness and health the whole of His Highness's fifty-eighth year, from last August.

Thus he would ail between August 12th and September 27th; enjoy health between September 27th and October 9th; ail again between October 9th and November 6th, and so on. Most of the periods of health were short, I noticed—one comprising only four days; and by a rapid arithmetical calculation we discovered that he was condemned to sickness for eight months in the year.

“How much did you pay for this information?” I asked.

“Three hundred rupees (£20),” he said bitterly. “And I had to pay it before they would send the letter. What does it all mean?”

I explained it to him. He had, of course, already read it numerous times and had underlined the word “boils”; but he wanted to be comforted. So we went carefully through it and found that in only one case—the recent boil—could the writer be said to have hit the bull's-eye.

Of course His Highness would not admit to having enjoyed
really
good health at any time in his fifty-eighth year; but there had been little specific.

“What do they mean?” he exclaimed vexedly. “In the last letter they sent me they said that I must have three months' serious illness in my fifty-eighth year, and I thought that that was this boil of mine I had just now—but it only lasted a fortnight. And now they make no mention of that illness at all! Also they said that if I recovered from my serious illness at the end of my sixty-first year, I should live on till my sixty-eighth or seventieth—but they make no mention of
that
here either! What does it mean?”

“It doesn't mean anything,” I said. “It's just rubbish.”

“You are quite right,” he replied. “They are all rogues—rogues and rascals!”

Narayan did not come to see me this morning because he had a
pooja
, a religious ceremony. His father had had trouble he said, and had prayed successfully for relief; he had therefore been obliged to hold a thanksgiving feast. It was the custom. Twenty-five Brahmans had attended, and the cost of the entertainment had been thirty-seven rupees.

He and Sharma walked with me in the evening, and on the whitewashed wall of a house we saw some figures roughly designed in wet cow-dung round the doorway. On the right side were two suns, on the left a very crude peacock, and above it a pattern of lines which, Narayan told me, represented a stool for the God to sit on. These designs meant, he said, that a child had just been born there, and any one seeing them would understand their glad import and keep clear of the house. I thought they were the work of uneducated peasants, but he said that the custom was quite general, and that if his own wife had a child these same designs would be scratched on the walls of his house. While we were looking at these things the barber who cuts my hair passed by. He smiled at me and salaamed, and then held out his hand towards me, palm down, with the fingers extended upwards. This was all done on the move.

“He asks after your health,” said Narayan.

So I nodded my head reassuringly. There were many other provincial signs, Narayan told me, used instead of speech when one was in a hurry or for some other reason did not wish to stop. He showed me some more—mostly obvious—while Sharma, finding this a huge joke, imitated him like a monkey. A cupped hand under the lower lip meant “I am thirsty and going to drink”; joined finger-tips popped in and out of the mouth, “I am hungry and going to eat”; the head rested against the right forearm, “I am tired and going to bed.” To make imaginary rings with a finger round the right ear meant “I am going to make water,” and there were also definite signals for “Go on” and “Come on,” but these were such slight movements of the hand that it is difficult to describe them.