I recognized her at once, by her sullen, spiteful expression, as the young man who had espoused the three Gods at His Highness’s private view, and since she does not appear now any better pleased with her peacock than she had been with three husbands, maybe there is no pleasing her at all. When she comes to a standstill, the Manager respectfully requests her to bless his actors with fluency, and she consents, rather ungraciously observing that she can make the mute to speak, let alone actors.
She then says she is going back to Heaven (Nak); whereupon the clown exclaims:
“What! she is going up my nose (Nak)? Indeed she isn’t! I shall hold it.” Which he does.
Upon this the abandoned street is again unrolled, and the Manager returns with his chant and cymbals. He is again visited by the clown, who carries a sword upon his shoulder, and describes how he once caught a lion in a parrot’s cage. I forget how this was done, and it doesn’t matter; as Babaji Rao said, they were just doing a little gagging until the play was ready. So the clown tells another story of how he went to stay with his father-in-law. He was given a room at the top of the house, and desiring to go downstairs at night to make water (peshab karna), and being unused to the house and unable to see in the dark, he tied one end of his turban to his bedrail and took the other end with him so that he might find his way back. Unfortunately a buffalo which happened to be in the house chewed the turban through, and the clown, returning, lost himself and got into bed with his mother-in-law by mistake.
At length the Manager and the clown retire, and their place is taken by a boy dressed as a dancing girl. He raises his hands aloft and stamps slowly and awkwardly round the stage, jingling the bells on his ankles, and much impeded by a very heavy pink skirt and several tawdry yellow veils edged with silver. From time to time he glances anxiously into the wings, and is clearly prepared to go stamping on until fatigue overtakes him or some one tells him to stop; which some one eventually does, and he exits with obvious relief, his dance uncompleted.
This concludes the preamble; in orthodox drama it is invariable in form, though not in dialogue.
The play itself now begins. The curtain rises discovering another woodland scene, more elaborate than the last, in which Siva, the Dissolver and Reproducer, is squatting with his wife, Parwati. Siva wears a red cloak and the River Ganges on his head in the form of a rag doll, for he is said to have intercepted this stream as it flowed out of the foot of Vishnu, so that the earth should not be swamped by the rush of water. He looks very silly and gaga in his unconvincing gray beard, and is indeed recognized as being the simplest of the Hindoo Gods; but his consort, Parwati, is a handsome young man and has a ring in his nose. It seems that Siva has called a council of the Gods to discuss some problem, and soon they arrive, heralded by the clown; first Indra, the Rain God and Hindoo “Zeus”; then Brahma, the Creator, who has four faces so that he can see all round; and finally Vishnu, the Preserver, carrying his bow. Each is accompanied by his wife; they all kneel to Siva and seat themselves on either side of him in a semicircle, and when the party is complete Siva bids Parwati take the ladies for a walk and show them the beauties of Mount Kylash. Rid of their wives, the Gods now get to business. Apparently the trouble is that Siva has sent one of his demon devotees to bring him some ashes from a funeral pyre, and he has not yet returned. What can have happened? But scarcely has the question been put when flames and smoke spurt from the right wing, and, uttering fierce cries, the demon rushes on with a drawn sword and executes a wild dance.
His aspect is truly terrifying. Black and unkempt are his wig and mustache; across his forehead streaks of red paint have been drawn; dark rings encircle his eyes, and from his upper jaw two small tusks protrude. His costume is less impressive. It begins all right at the top with shoulder-guards and a monstrous silver helmet decorated with peacocks’ feathers; but below this there is a muddle of yellow chiffon swathed about his torso and spreading forth, beneath a metal belt, like a ballet dancer’s skirt, and below this again are red stockings, so that his general appearance resembles that of the comic pirate in a Christmas pantomime.
“Why are you so late in bringing me my ashes from the funeral pyre?” asks Siva testily.
“To-day no one has died,” replies the Demon. “You cannot have a funeral pyre without a dead man. Grant me a boon that I may be able to destroy any one upon whose head I lay my hand, so that there will be none of this delay in future.”
Any one else would have given this request a few moments’ consideration, but Siva is a simple God and merely says:
“Very well, have your wish; but see you use it carefully, and only when you cannot get hold of ashes in any other way, mind!”
The other Gods, however, are rather dismayed; they think that Siva has been foolishly rash, and, when the Demon has retired looking eminently untrustworthy, they do not scruple to tell him so; but Siva merely remarks that he always finds it difficult to refuse a request. After this no one seems to have anything more to say; a sheepish exeunt takes place, and two men in black enter and dance together on the empty stage. They look like executioners in a melodrama, and in fact they are the Demon’s attendants; and it is not long before he himself returns, still uttering ominous cries, and joins the dance. And now we learn, what we have already been inclined to suspect, that he is a thorough bad lot. He got his annihilating power, he tells his satellites, by a trick, for he never made any attempt whatever to find a corpse, and intends now to use it upon the Gods themselves and make himself master of the world. The curtain falls upon him hurrying off upon his fell work, and rises again upon Indra enthroned.
To Indra comes Bidoushak the clown, with word that the Demon’s two attendants have called and are waiting outside. They are admitted, and, without delay, curtly inform Indra that he must immediately abdicate his throne as the Demon wants it. Indra refuses haughtily, and descending on to the drugget in front of the proscenium, dances a battle-dance with each of them in turn; but while the issue is still undecided the Demon himself irrupts, and Indra, to evade the destructive touch, flees incontinently into the wings. The curtain falls.
The next scene is the same, but now it is Brǎhma who is seated on the throne. He is visited by the perturbed Indra, who explains the mischief afoot and what a narrow squeak he himself has just had; but even while they are discussing it and saying they told Siva so, in come the two attendants unannounced. Now it is Brǎhma who dances with them; but again, while the result is in the balance, the Demon appears and drives both the Gods before him. Vishnu’s turn comes next, and we have a repetition of the preceding action; he also is put to flight. Then the scene changes, and we are back again in the wood. Here is Siva, seated beneath a tree. He welcomes his Demon with cordial speech, which the latter rudely interrupts, and the old man is at last brought to his senses.
He is very upset.
“You are my disciple, my son,” he says; “it doesn’t become you to speak to me like this.”
But alas! even the Gods themselves, it seems, cannot move the heartless; the Demon becomes truculent, and the poor old man is obliged to draw his sword, and is soon driven ignominiously from the stage.
Parwati, his wife, now enters. She has come to seek her lord, but is met instead by the returning Demon (for whom even Siva, it seems, has been too nimble), who makes improper suggestions to her. She escapes, pursued; but returns almost immediately and prays softly to Vishnu to preserve her chastity and save Siva. If she had seen, as we have seen, Vishnu’s inglorious defeat, perhaps she would have taken other measures to protect herself; but as it is, she departs apparently well satisfied, and Vishnu appears.
He says that something must certainly be done at once to help Parwati, and goes off to make arrangements for a scheme he has in mind. This does not take long; he returns at once, but in a new form—as a young and beautiful maiden.
(As a matter of fact another actor took the part of Vishnu transformed—the spiteful-looking young man who in the prologue had been Saraswati—so that
I found this a little confusing; but Babaji Rao appeared to have no difficulty in following, nor did Ram Chandra, his son.)
Opportunely the Demon returns, and falls in love at first sight. The disguised Vishnu receives his protestations with unconcealed satisfaction, saying that she too feels herself considerably attracted towards him and would like to dance with him. But the suggestion is received with the loftiest scorn; he has never learned to dance, the Demon says, only to fight, and she must either fight with him or marry him. But she pleads so prettily for this first favor that at length he gives way, and, to gratify her, joins her in a dance.
“That shows,” whispered the stout Secretary in my ear, “to what absurd lengths a man will go when he believes himself to be in love.”
And indeed it was a pitiable sight to see this mighty Demon, who aspired to the seat of the Gods, befooled by a mere girl, divine though she might be, into dancing a minuet. Clearly he is no good at it, but clumsily copies her every movement of hand and foot, and becomes at last so confused that when she raises her hand to her head he does likewise, forgetful of the dangerous power granted him by Siva. He touches himself; there is a flash of pink flame from the left wing to signalize his internal combustion, and screaming in the agony of death he rushes from the scene. Whereupon all the Gods flock in and congratulate Vishnu, now in his proper shape, on his cunning ruse, and the final curtain falls.
“My son is very pleased with you,” said Babaji Rao as we parted. “He says you are a good man, so you must be all right, for he is very difficult to please.”
Babaji Rao is only about thirty, not much older than myself, in fact. I was astonished to hear this, for with his corpulence, his spectacles, and his scanty graying hair, he looks quite forty, and his serious, rather pedantic manner, too, is that of a much older man. But it is very difficult to guess the age of Indians. I had always thought that Abdul, for instance, must be about thirty; but when I asked him his age to-day he said: “I am half past twenty-two.”
His Highness’s night’s rest is of six hours’ duration, and is divided into two periods. He sleeps from 11 P.M. to 2 A.M., when he sits up and transacts business or writes letters for six hours. Then he sleeps again from 8 A.M. to 11 A.M.
“Do you mean to say,” I asked him, “that you call the Dewan and Babaji Rao at two o’clock in the morning?”
He spluttered, and waved a protesting hand.
“No, no, no,” he said, “I call them at five or six. But I asked them once what they would say if I sent for them at two o’clock, and the Dewan said, ‘You will be responsible for the murder of a Brahman,’ and Babaji Rao said, ‘You will be teaching me my first lesson in disobedience.’”
His Highness had told Mrs. Bristow also that he did his writing in the middle of the night.
“What, poems?” she asked, and when he shook his head, “Oh, what a pity! I was hoping you’d write one to me.”
He did so (she is his idea, he says, of perfect feminine beauty), and sent it to her—a nice little poem, which said among other things that her eyebrows were like drawn bows and her teeth like pomegranate seeds.
“Do you like India?” Mrs. Bristow asked me.
“Oh, yes. I think it’s marvelous.”
“And what do you think of the people?”
“I like them very much, and think them most interesting.”
“Oo, aren’t you a fibber! What was it you said the other day about ‘awful Anglo-Indian chatter’?”
“But I thought you were speaking of the Indians just now, not the Anglo-Indians.”
“The Indians! I never think of them.”
“Well, you said ‘the people,’ you know.”
“I meant us people, stupid!”
“I see. Well now, let’s start again.”
1. A subcollector of revenue.
JANUARY 19TH
Abdul Haq showed me some obscene postcards to-day.
“I have bought with me some pictures, Mr. Ackerley,” he said. “Do you wish to see them?”
“What are they, Abdul?”
“Postcards,” he said, simpering “Very bad postcards, so I do not wish to show them to you . . . unless you wish to see them. You understand?”
I did not quite understand, perhaps chiefly because, having always, from a vague mistrust, kept my relationship with Abdul strictly scholastic, I was scarcely prepared for a sudden exchange of the schoolroom for the lavatories of sex. There had, indeed, been indications that such an exchange might, at my least encouragement, be easily effected, for among the first things he had taught me were such phrases as “To have sexual intercourse,” “To lie down with one’s wife,” “To make water,” and so forth, accompanied by bashful sniggerings and puffings in the nose; and although I had been grateful for such practical information and must count these phrases as among the first learned as well as the first taught, I had never taken advantage of them as short-cuts to intimacy.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“I have them here, in my pocket; but I do not wish you to see them. If you tell me to show them to you, then I must show them to you. You understand? In this way.”
Having made himself clear, he frowned slightly, drew in his chin (a peculiar trick of his), and scrabbled nervously among his notes.
I watched him with great amusement. It was the second time he had played for my curiosity, and this time he certainly won. Bad postcards were irresistible.
“Come on, Abdul,” I said, “let’s have a look at them.” He looked up brightly, smiling with tight lips.
“You wish to see them?” I nodded. “You are sure, Mr. Ackerley?” I nodded. “You will not be angry with me?” I shook my head. “They are very bad.” I held out my hand. “But I do not show them to you, you understand?” he continued, drawing a packet from his pocket. “You have commanded me—against my wish. Look, I place them here, on the table. It is for you to decide.”
I took them, and he at once craned forward, straining his hands in his lap, watching the expression of my face as I turned the cards, and tittering when one was particularly pornographic. They were mostly photographs, all of extremely unattractive naked Europeans, conventionally or unconventionally amusing themselves and taken from the most spectacular angles. I had seen them before—or pictures very similar—at school, where I was disgusted and returned them quickly to their owner, and later in Paris, or Naples, where I was disgusted and bought them.
Perhaps they differed little in subject from the sodomitic sculptures on the Garha temples—the representation of an act; but their greater reality prevented one from looking at them with such detachment, rendered them more sensational, so that the figures, selected by the photographer with as little concern for physical beauty as, it seemed, the Garha figures had been cut, were here repulsive, whilst the latter, owing to their unreality, had been merely quaint.
“You like them?” asked Abdul slyly when I had turned the last.
“Very interesting,” I said in a cold voice, handing them back.
I had gone with him as far along that road as I intended to go; I had indulged in front of him a coarse appetite; it was quite another matter to share with him my satisfaction.
I was, indeed, as much in need of friendship as he had shown himself ready to supply it; but I did not want Abdul for my friend.
There is a small market fair on the outskirts of the town, and strolling through it this afternoon I thought I would like to taste the queer silvery saffron sweets that were displayed on some of the stalls. Mrs. Bristow appeared at that moment, and asked me what I thought I was doing. I enlightened her. “You’re mad!” she exclaimed. “Do you want cholera? Because if you do, eat some of those sweets and you’ll be dead in a few hours!”
“But quite a lot of people are eating them,” I said. “Will they all be dead in a few hours?”
“Indians!” Mrs. Bristow snorted. “Never mind what filth they put into their stomachs. That’s a very different matter. They’re pretty well inoculated by
now, I should imagine. But what they can eat will kill you. All right” (as she saw the doubt in my face), “you needn’t believe me, but I know. Nobody, nobody, unless he’s out of his senses, would dream of touching Indian sweets!”
She spoke with such vehemence that I was quite alarmed, and allowed myself to be led sweet-less away.
It appears that Sharma has been very naughty. The Maharajah gave him a small gift of ten rupees last night, and since this was received in silence, asked:
“Are you not pleased?”
“No,” said Sharma sullenly. “It spoils me.”
“Then why do you not give it back?”
“I do. Here—take it!”
“Very well. Then, since presents spoil you, why do you not give me back all the other things I have given you—the money, clothes, and ornaments?”
“I do. I give them all back. I will bring them now.”
“Bring them to-morrow morning,” said His Highness, exerting what little dignity and authority remained to him; “and meanwhile go, and do not return until I send for you.”
“He is a very bad boy,” concluded the King morosely when he had recounted this deplorable incident.
“Oh, no,” I smiled; “he’s a good boy really; he’s only a child!”
“He is a very bad boy,” repeated His Highness, gazing straight before him. “He says that when he came up to see you the other day, you tried to—to—to cling him, that you threw him down and tried to cling him.”
“What!” I exclaimed, considerably startled.
“That is what he told me,” said His Highness.
“It’s an absolute lie,” I said.
“That is what I told him,” he replied, turning upon me wide eyes that politely reflected my indignation; “and I said that if he repeated the lie to anyone else I would send him to hell. He is a very bad boy!”
Hindoo Holiday Page 9
