by Damon Galgut
The Morisons had given him an introduction to a Mr. Sultan Ahmed Khan, who had booked rooms for them at the hotel, met them at the station when they arrived, and then asked them to tea the following day. When they requested directions to his house he said, “Oh, no matter, I will send my servant to bring you. Simply wait.” They simply waited, and no servant came. In the evening Khan appeared, with his English wife, and asked what had happened to them. “I invited a few of my friends and we have been expecting you, but you did not come.”
“But you told us you would send your servant for us.”
“Yes, yes, so I did, but as everybody knows where my house is, I decided the servant wasn’t necessary.”
Morgan was so charmed by the illogicality that he forgot to stay cross. Where else could this have happened but India? It struck him as revealing, though of what exactly he couldn’t explain.
There was a great deal by now that he didn’t understand, though mostly this amused him, rather than causing anguish. Goldie, however, was suffering. Morgan rode with the older man atop a painted elephant to see some Buddhist temples sprouting from a giant rock, after which they went down the other side to look at statues of naked Jain saints. These were very wonderful, in the sides of a deep chasm full of churning water and trees. In a certain light, if you came upon them unexpectedly, they might have been alive, something the earth itself had thrown up; and possibly it was this thought which caused Goldie to flinch and crouch, his face sealed against them.
In a general way, Morgan could see, Goldie wasn’t happy. He had come to India in a spirit of enquiry and enthusiasm, and had thrown himself vigorously into the continent. Along the way he had delivered lectures and engaged in debates and tried to absorb what he saw. Goldie was a believer in the imperial project, which is to say, in the civilising power of social progress. But his visit to Ellora had left him troubled, and some of his unease came pouring forth now.
“We are from a Greek tradition,” he told Morgan. “And that has nothing to do with India. Look at it! This mixture of religions, all in one place—what do we have in common with any of them?”
They were in the gorge, near a great stone figure blackened by dripping water, its face turned towards a tree. It wasn’t unlike a Greek carving, Morgan thought, only perhaps on a different scale, but he thought it best not to say so. Instead, he pointed out:
“Religion isn’t everything.”
“But here it does seem to be. Have you attempted any rational conversations lately? Religion is always part of it, there’s no escape. But not the sort of religion we understand. No, this is superstition and cruelty, and it can’t be reformed. And let’s not talk of the dirt and disorder! There is no closing the gap, whatever we do.”
Morgan murmured, “Oh, come. I have seen many instances of whites and Indians getting on famously.”
“Where have you seen it?”
The examples that came to mind didn’t inspire, so he said, “Well, there is me and Masood.”
Goldie stared gloomily at him. At last he said, “The unhappy fact is that the English are bored by the Indians. It gives me no pleasure to say so, but it’s true.”
Morgan was silenced by this idea, and the conversation tailed off. But it continued to flicker in the corners of his mind for days afterwards. He had always thought of Goldie as having the gift of midwifery, the ability to build bridges between different people and their worldviews, and this was the first time he’d seen it fail.
It was depressing for Morgan to be at such variance with the older man, when their accord was usually harmonious. He couldn’t see India except through Masood’s eyes, which made him understand things differently. It wasn’t the Indians that had upset him so much as his own countrymen; he didn’t like what the British had done, nor what they had become while doing it. Nevertheless, he had also had some conversations and encounters with Englishmen that he found surprisingly enlightened.
And unlike Goldie, Morgan found himself unexpectedly stirred by temples and mosques and roadside shrines. His reasons for rejecting Christianity didn’t seem to apply here. He knew a little about Islam through Masood, and he had some feeling for it, but Hinduism remained an opacity and a mystery. He had read up on it before he came, but he soon discovered that the explanations had no purchase. Fire and water and smoke and incense and chanting and bells and butter and blood: this was a language whose syllables were translated into physical terms; a language of the elements. It was a language that he hoped might speak to him one day.
Meanwhile, he did his best to understand. He was soon to have an opportunity to observe the subject closely, when they moved on to stay with the Maharajah of Chhatarpur, to whom the Morisons had given him an introduction—for this man’s every obsessive, fretful thought seemed to be about Krishna. Politics and the matter of running his state were relegated to the background.
The guest house where he put them up was outside the town, on a narrow ridge, and the view from the front veranda, looking out over forest and temples to barer hills behind, was soothing. Even Bob was pacified, and not so eager to move on. And for nearly a fortnight, the days unfolded with a certain regularity and routine. In the mornings the Maharajah’s doctor (a fat Hindu) and his Personal Secretary (a fat Mohammedan) would come to take them on an outing somewhere. And every afternoon the Maharajah sent his carriage to fetch them. In this little decrepit landau, overloaded with ragged menials and stinking of grease, they were driven through the town, while everybody bowed. The palace wasn’t overly large, but had been whitewashed into newness. After due protocol had been followed, they were escorted to a courtyard, where His Highness was waiting for them under a billowing umbrella.
The Morisons had described the Maharajah as an absurd creature. But he wasn’t so—or not entirely; for there was certainly something foppishly ridiculous about the tiny, overdressed figure, living in the jungle with his retinue for company. An astonishingly ugly little man, his tongue stained bright red with betel-juice, wearing a dark frock coat, white embroidered knickers and socks, as well as earrings and a smear of yellow paint at the base of his nose, he could not receive them inside the palace, or even eat with them, for fear of contamination.
He was harmlessly eccentric, and his kingdom was too small to signify very much. In any event, he did not like the idea of ruling, and did so with scant enthusiasm. Accordingly, the minders sent to look after him were somewhat ludicrous too. There was a chaplain from the military cantonment, a foolish bounder who bullied the Maharajah tirelessly, shouting at him that he should be eating beef, that it would do him good. Whenever he left, the Personal Secretary would murmur to them that, “The Padre Sahib is a very nice man, he has no interest in religion, and that is very suitable for a clergyman.” The politics were looked after by the Political Agent, a more sinister fellow who was nevertheless genial. A retired army officer and a Theosophist, he also liked to lecture the Maharajah in a nonsensical way. One afternoon, apropos of nothing, he suddenly declared that, “You must get rid of the Self and not expect a reward,” and on another occasion that, “We should imitate the Infinite. If only we would, there wouldn’t be this sinful outcry in England about conscription.”
When Morgan and his friends were visiting, most of the talk was on spiritual themes too. The Maharajah decided early on that Goldie should be his main interlocutor. He lived for Philosophy and Love, and wanted to make them one: “Tell me, Mr. Dickinson, where is God? Can Herbert Spencer lead me to him, or should I prefer George Henry Lewes? Oh, when will Krishna come and be my friend? Oh, Mr. Dickinson!”
Goldie, whose stomach was in a terrible state, nevertheless brought his coolest Platonism to bear. Under the huge umbrella, the two men were gentle seekers together after truth. In these moments, perhaps, India drew almost within Goldie’s grasp, human and tactile. Then the Maharajah would bring the meeting to an end by suddenly declaring, “But I will not tire you longer,” and they w
ould leave. Or else he would suggest a motor-drive. Then they would chug off peacefully somewhere, the three of them packed onto the back seat with His Highness, while next to the chauffeur in the front rode a silent “poor cousin”, a wretched-looking man who carried with him his opera glasses, cigarettes, betel nut, umbrella, stick and State Sword, as well as a little bag of what Morgan suspected was food, although nobody ever saw him eating.
They would sometimes visit the Maharajah’s second palace, Mau, which was a crumbling ruin on a lake. (“See, Mr. Dickinson, that balcony—did Hamlet climb up there to visit Juliet, do you think?”) And then he would give the ruined palace to Goldie to keep in perpetuity, forgetting that he had given it to Morgan only two days before.
At night on a few occasions they were treated to a Miracle Play, danced and chanted by the resident acting troupe. The plays were often written by the Maharajah himself, and they usually portrayed some or other story from the life of Krishna. The troupe was funded from the royal treasury, and most of the actors were young and beautiful boys. His Highness never tired of watching them act out the themes of his spiritual devotions. But the little dramas were often incomprehensible and to Goldie this proved his point.
“You see,” he told Morgan. “It’s as I said. Everything comes down to religion, and it’s dull, dull, dull.”
“Religion is perhaps not the only element at work here.”
“What do you mean? Oh, yes, I see . . . but even that part of it is dull. A mixture of rapture and cowardice. No action, but all that quivering!”
Chhatarpur was where Morgan had to part finally from his friends: Goldie and Bob were going eastwards, and he was heading the other way. But religion also made it difficult to leave. The court astrologer was consulted, and bad omens were predicted for an eastward journey on a Monday. Bob and Goldie delayed in the end, but Morgan did not. He left on a Tuesday, which was unlucky for anybody travelling west, but he decided to take his chances.
* * *
He was soon to be in the company of another Rajah. He had arranged to meet the Darlings in Dewas, where they made a yearly Christmas visit to the palace. The ruler of Dewas State Senior was none other than Malcolm’s charge, the young heir to the throne he had tutored just five years before and with whom he had remained close friends.
His Highness Tukoji Rao III, now twenty-three years old, was a very different figure to his counterpart in Chhatarpur. He was both more serious and more light-hearted, not being plagued by inner doubts. He ate food with his foreign guests, unfussily, and his conversation was not exclusively about his soul.
Morgan’s first meeting with him took place in the most unlikely of settings. He had made his way by degrees, via Jhansi, Sanchi, Bhopal, Ujjain and Udaipur, to Indore. His next destination was to be Dewas, but meanwhile he was stopping with a Major Luard, whom he’d met through Goldie, and he’d been taken down to the club for a drink. He was introduced around and at the sound of his name, from an armchair nearby there sprang up a tiny, shiny little Indian man, wearing a turban, who grasped both his hands and twisted them delightedly.
“I am the Rajah of Dewas Senior,” he announced, “and you are Malcolm’s great friend. You are to call me Bapu Sahib.”
Only a very few clubs had started to open their doors to Indians, and then only to men of the highest breeding. Morgan was delighted, and suddenly he didn’t so much mind the depressing rabble of Englishmen eating chip potatoes and drinking whisky and soda.
Bapu Sahib was there, he told Morgan, to compose a telegram. It was a moment of crisis, and he was writing to the Viceroy.
“Perhaps you can help me with the wording,” he said. “I wish to convey my outrage and loyalty after the terrible incident in Delhi.”
Morgan knew, of course, what he was referring to. The white community had been speaking of little else for the past three days. At the official transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, a homemade bomb had been thrown into Lord Hardinge’s howdah as he rode in the procession. The mahout had been killed, but the Viceroy and his wife had escaped with only minor injuries.
The political reverberations from this incident were huge, and they moved out in concentric rings across the continent. Josie and her son were already in Dewas when Morgan got there the next day, but it was only when Malcolm arrived a little later that the news from the capital was freshened. Malcolm had been in the Punjabi procession, just ahead of the Viceroy, and was deeply shaken.
“It was terrible, Morgan, and it’s going to cause a lot of trouble. Already there are people saying revenge must be taken. I heard some talk, from top officials too, about turning the Tommies to fire on the crowd. And there are some who would, I can tell you.” When Josie and the other women were out of earshot, he added, “I also heard it said that it’s a pity Hardinge didn’t die, because then they could really have done something drastic. These thoughts are actually being spoken.”
“But not acted on so far.”
“No, but they might.”
The common perception was that the bomb had been thrown by a Hindu, protesting against the capital being moved to Delhi, a predominantly Muslim area. The outrage had happened in Chandni Chowk, not far from where Dr Ansari had his offices. Morgan could imagine how Masood would be lamenting—and there it was again, that inward turmoil, the double frontiers of loyalty.
He was depressed by politics, and by Indian politics especially. He couldn’t see through events to the people behind them, and felt he’d lost his way. He had a small breakdown just a few days later, while he was out for a walk with Malcolm and Josie, and they told him casually about some of the schemes and plots of the Maharajah of Gwalior, who was the Rajah’s uncle and rival. The information churned suddenly in his gut. They were under a soft evening sky at the time, walking up some gentle hills not unlike the Sussex Downs, but in an instant the very soil underfoot seemed hard and treacherous. There were holes in the earth, concealing scorpions and snakes; a crow flying overhead cawed with an awful, raucous voice, like the land itself berating him.
“Oh, do stop,” he implored them. “I don’t want to hate this country.”
In that moment, he felt he did. He hated India. It made no difference whether it was English or Indian, all human interaction was power; under the plumage and finery, people circled each other with poisonous intent. Every conversation jumped continually between subservience and rudeness, with no possible middle ground of genuine emotion.
In the morning, he felt better. History receded as the present took hold. He was staying in a luxurious tent pitched next to the guest house at the edge of a lake. In the still silver water, the reflections of flying cranes mirrored the real birds overhead. Baldeo was crouched down, singing, while he washed clothes. On the far side of the lake a series of small tombs mimicked the larger shape of the hill of Devi, which overlooked the town.
He walked up the hill a while later. It took less than half an hour to reach the summit. From there the whole tidy little town was visible, all its buildings and people and their doings mild and far away. Human divisions were reduced to their usual scale, minimal in the larger picture.
On the ground level, however, the divisions were more significant. He had heard from Malcolm, in his letters, about how Dewas State had been split into two branches, Junior and Senior. Bapu Sahib was Rajah of the Senior branch. It seemed that a previous Rajah, in the last century, had given his brother a share of the government, and this generosity had been extended to subsequent generations. When the British came, they had made the split official. Now the two kingdoms lay intertwined: one side of a road might belong to the Junior branch, while the Senior laid claim to the other. Each ruler had his own court, his own tiny army, his own palace, his own waterworks and tennis club, and the mountain of Devi had been divided between them, so that each might ascend to the summit by a separate footpath. For a time even the flagstaff on the top of the mountain had been jointly o
wned, with the flag flying exactly at half-mast.
It was surreal, fantastic—like no other kingdom Morgan had ever heard of. Malcolm had spoken of it as Alice in Wonderland, but for him it was more out of Gilbert and Sullivan: a quaint alternative universe where everything seemed accompanied by a tinkling piano. The Rajah of Dewas Senior was merely a colourful character trapped in his own outrageous set.
* * *
Afterwards, he decided that his friendship with Bapu Sahib really began on the evening that His Highness hosted an Indian marriage celebration for the Goodalls, who were friends of Malcolm’s and also staying in Dewas.
Morgan was in his tent, dressing in his English clothes for the occasion, while Baldeo hopped around him, trying to snip his frayed cuffs. From behind a curtain a voice called, “May I come in?” and the Rajah entered with a handsome young courtier, carrying a pile of Indian clothes.
For almost an hour Morgan became the centre of attention, while Baldeo and His Highness and the courtier all dressed and redressed him. When he emerged, he was unrecognisable in white muslin jodhpurs, a white shirt, a gorgeous waistcoat, a claret-coloured silken coat, trimmed in gold, and atop it all an oversized Maratha turban. The other guests had been similarly dressed in Indian style. The Goodalls toiled towards the New Palace, not half a mile distant, on top of an elephant, while the others followed in carriages with sirdars in attendance, all of it surrounded by torches and a band playing lustily. At the palace they were treated to a lavish banquet, and then they went up to the rooftop for champagne and dancing. In the middle of all this, a message came from the Rajah’s wife, the Rani, that she wanted to meet them.
In his Indian travels so far, the wives and mothers of Morgan’s friends had all stayed invisible to him. In Bhopal, the only native state ruled by a woman, the Begum herself—despite his official introduction from Theodore Morison—had kept herself hidden. So he was especially touched by this unexpected midnight summons. The Rani was extremely lovely, wearing a filmy white dress. She had molten doe-like eyes, from which she stared at them in friendly fright as she clutched to the doorpost, while Malcolm tried out a few words of Urdu, in vain. The meeting lasted only a few moments before they retreated downstairs once more. Morgan would never see her again in his life.
