Hindoo Holiday

by J. R. Ackerley

  But if the two horoscopes are harmonious the marriage is arranged, the actual proposal always coming from the girl’s side, and the betrothal ceremony takes place. Later on they are married. The marriageable age varies all over India, but in Chhokrapur the boy should be ten or more, the girl seven or more.

  “But,” said Babaji Rao, “in my society, where we consider ourselves more advanced, the bride should be not less than fourteen.”

  On the day fixed for this second ceremony the bridegroom goes with his parents and a great company to the house of the bride’s father. But he does not enter it in company. At some distance from it the party halts, and he goes on alone and empty-handed, for it is the custom that he should seem to arrive a beggar and that the girl should be given to him for charity’s sake. And it is scarcely to be wondered at that many of these children when they reach the age of puberty and are better able to appreciate these charitable gifts, the uses of which at the time of giving they did not understand, should begin to doubt the infallibility of horoscopes, and hold, for the remainder of their lives, on the subject of charity, views unlikely to be found in any of the Vedas. Narayan, for instance, does not love his wife; “she is much ugly,” he complains; but the Prime Minister, speaking the other day about human physical beauty, said that he set no store by it; it was a thing of no account; there was, in fact, a common saying in India—“A beautiful wife is a man’s worst enemy.” Nevertheless he admitted that when he had been married by his parents he had resented, for a year or two, the plainness of his wife: “But I made the best of a bad job, and now I find that it was not a bad job at all, but a good job, for she is an excellent housewife to me, and we are very happy together.”

  “Also she does not honeycomb me,” he added; but after a moment’s consideration he corrected this to “henpeck.”

  But to return. In the bride’s house a great company meet the bridegroom, and another house is allotted to him and his friends, since he will have to stay and feast for some days. This is usually in the spring, the most propitious time for marriages.

  The actual ceremony is rather complicated, but as far as I remember, the couple sit on the floor and a sacred fire is lighted between them by the officiating pundit. They then rise and unite—that is to say, their vestments are tied together by a piece of consecrated cloth beneath which their hands are joined—and walk three times round the sacred fire, each time in seven steps, repeating prayers and Vedic hymns. This concludes the ceremony; they are now man and wife, and he takes her with him back to his home, where she stays for a couple of days in order to meet his relations. The marriage is not, of course, consummated; this is another business altogether, and happens one year, three years, or five years later, at the discretion of the parents. If it is a lower-class marriage the wife has complete freedom and may go where she likes (though she will probably veil her face before any strange and undue interest in the streets); but if she is of the upper classes she disappears, after the consummation ceremony, into purdah, and save by her husband, her near relations, and female friends, is never seen again.

  “And, provided there is no fundamental incompatibility, nor any physical repulsion on either side, love,” said Babaji Rao complacently, “comes of its own accord.”

  There is no divorce in India for the rearrangement of lives to which love does not come; though Hindoos may, if they wish, have more than one wife. But, owing to the great costliness of marriages, on which frequently the savings of a lifetime are spent, polygamy is usually impracticable, and, as in the Prime Minister’s case, bad jobs are made the best of. Whether courage and diligent usage generally bring, as in his case again, their own reward, and familiarity breeds content, I do not know, for, says Babaji Rao, Hindoos are averse to discussing their domestic affairs, especially when they are disharmonious; so it is difficult to say whether, on the whole, the Hindoo marriage system produces as much unhappiness as our own, by which a man usually selects his own wife himself and seldom attempts to make the best of a bad job if the divorce laws can be bent to his deliverance.

  FEBRUARY 8TH

  Yesterday evening, at the Palace at Garha, Her Highness, the Maharani Sahib, gave birth to a daughter. I learnt this from Abdul, whom I found leaning up against the wall of the doctor’s house on my way to the post-office this morning. I was delighted at the thought of what this would mean; there would surely be all kinds of festivities and celebrations, and every one would be gay and excited. His Highness had not been near me for two days—a touch of fever was alleged—but a letter received during breakfast warned me to expect him at three o’clock. At about two the Prime Minister, accompanied by Babaji Rao, arrived at the Guest House, in a pink silk skullcap. After talking about his own health for a quarter of an hour, he put on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and, spreading his enormous bulk on a sofa, began to read an Indian newspaper. He looked like a captive balloon.

  He read, as is his habit, in undertones to himself, gesticulating every now and then with a small, well-shaped hand; while Babaji Rao and I sat in deferential silence on opposite sides of the table.

  At length, however, when he was turning a page, I ventured to ask:

  “Is it true that there’s been an addition to the Royal House?”

  “Quite true,” he answered, without looking up. “A daughter was born to His Highness yesterday evening. Why do you ask?”

  “I wanted to be sure before congratulating him.”

  “A daughter, I said,” he remarked, fixing me over the top of his spectacles.

  “Yes, but . . .” I began.

  “There is nothing for congratulation in that,” he concluded, rather severely, and returned to his reading.

  “Is His Highness disappointed, then?” I asked, diffidently, after a pause.

  “Of course he is disappointed! Wouldn’t you or any man be disappointed? It is an occasion for condolence, not for congratulation.”

  “But there is a certain demand for daughters,” I began, seeing disappear the interesting festivities I had hoped for; but as though he were only too accustomed to this childish argument, his high-pitched, excitable voice emphatically cut me short.

  “My good sir, that is no consolation to the father. Let a man’s neighbors be afflicted with daughters, but let him himself be spared such useless and expensive encumbrances. That is the Indian’s attitude. How can any man want daughters? What good are they—fed, taught, and clothed to become another man’s property? Parents can never feel that a female child really belongs to them. There is always the knowledge that a time must come when a man will have to be paid to marry her and take her away. But with our sons it is different. They are a part of us. We rely upon them for our happiness in this world and the next, and when they marry they bring their wives under our roof, as we and our fathers did before them.”

  “But His Highness has one son already,” I said.

  “Yes, one. But how can a man feel secure with only one son? Consider how much depends on him, to comfort and support us here, and, by his prayers, to get us peace and happiness hereafter. One son is not enough.”

  “Then won’t there be any festivities?” I inquired despondently.

  “Certainly not!” replied the Prime Minister, and after reading his paper again for a few minutes and breaking wind audibly once or twice, he said, in a drowsy voice, “I did not have my accustomed rest to-day; excuse me if I sleep.”

  Babaji Rao had contributed nothing to the conversation; he had just sat and sniggered and rubbed his chin deprecatingly. His mild, sedate, deliberate thought is always overborne by the Prime Minister’s assertiveness and sweeping volubility, and he is obviously amused and, at the same time, slightly shocked by the latter’s bold arguments—clearly too extreme for his own advanced society. Soon His Highness hobbled upon the scene, and there took place a short discussion, which I did not understand, about some mysterious proposal which Babaji Rao was to submit for the Prime Minister’s consideration. It was, it appeared, very important to His Hig
hness that the Prime Minister should accept it—so important, in fact, that Babaji Rao was forbidden to submit it to-day, since to-day is a Friday. When this had been settled, His Highness beckoned me to lend him the support of my arm and returned to the car. He complained of great stiffness and acute pains all over his body, and seemed very gloomy.

  “How does one make a decision?” he cried in a fretful voice, after we had been driving for some time. “How does one make up one’s mind? That is what I want to know.”

  “Is there anything in particular?” I said.

  “This tour of mine. If I do not go, I fail in my duty; but if I do go I may fall ill upon the way, for I am broken in health, and this might cause a fatal delay. I might even have to return in the middle of it, which would make a very bad impression. What must I do?”

  “You must go, of course,” I said hastily, feeling that my own tour was in jeopardy. “You know yourself how important it is that you should make this pilgrimage, so you must make up your mind to do it now, and get it over. And really, Prince, I don’t think your health is as bad as all that; you’ll be better tomorrow, I expect.”

  “I get so stiff in my legs,” he said dismally; and then, after a pause: “I do not understand. We are born, and we enjoy life —and then we must die. Why must we die? Nobody wants to die.”

  “Perhaps not; but doesn’t it make a lot of difference not knowing when we must die?” I asked; “for in the ordinary course of events we have no previous information about our death; we only know that it will happen some time, somehow—perhaps without our knowing anything about it—so it’s silly to try to prepare for it.”

  “Why did they shoot the Czar?” asked His Highness mournfully. “Such a kind, weak man.”

  “That’s why,” I retorted grumpily. “He was weak and irresolute. He couldn’t make up his mind.”

  For some time after this we traveled along in silence; then suddenly His Highness remarked:

  “A daughter was born to me yesterday.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was going to congratulate you, but the Prime Minister says it is rather a subject for condolence.”

  “No, no,” he said; “you may congratulate me. I am pleased. I wanted a daughter.”

  “But aren’t they rather a nuisance on the whole?”

  “You are quite right; a very great nuisance.”

  I took out my handkerchief and dried my neck inside the collar. It was very hot; too hot to go into the question of why His Highness wanted a nuisance; but I supposed that really he did not care very much about it one way or another, and had not given the matter much thought. Later on this supposition seemed to receive confirmation. The Prime Minister was still at the Guest House when we returned; he was standing on the steps talking to Babaji Rao. His Highness beckoned to him from inside the car.

  “You know,” he said dimly, “a daughter was born to me at Garha last night?”

  “Yes, yes, I have heard.”

  “I am very pleased,” mumbled His Highness somberly. “I wanted a daughter.” Then, after a moment’s pause: “Are you sure it was a daughter?”

  The Sacred Thread, Babaji Rao says, is of three interwoven strands, each strand being again of three interwoven strands, and they are all tied together at one place in a small sacred knot. It is a symbol of the great Hindoo trinity, Brǎhma, Vishnu, and Siva, the main personalities of the one eternal spirit Brǎhma; and when it has been consecrated and blessed by Brahmans it acquires spiritually regenerating, purifying properties.

  Only the three highest castes may wear it; they are solemnly invested with it when they are about ten years old at their initiation ceremony, up to which time they are not permitted to pray or participate in any religious service; but immediately upon investiture they become entitled to the name of “Twice-born,” and their religious and spiritual life begins.

  This life was divided up into four periods or states—“unmarried religious student,” “married householder,” “anchorite,” and “renouncer of all worldly concerns,” when even the Sacred Thread itself was given up. Originally, then, after the investiture, the child, whoever he might be, would at once leave home and go and live for several years as an unmarried student in the house of a religious preceptor, and do, in return for education, such services as were required of him—begging alms in the city, tilling the soil, or grazing the cattle, for education was thought too high a thing to be acquired for money; and when his religious education was complete he would return home to marry, and enter the second state. But now that early marriages are the rule, the investiture is often solemnized at the same time as the marriage, and the child no longer leaves home.

  But he pretends to do so. He takes a stick and a small bundle of food and prepares to leave.

  “Where are you going?” ask his parents.

  “To Benares to my preceptor,” answers the child.

  “Please do not go as far as Benares,” they say; “stay with us, and we will find you a preceptor here,” and he is given over to the priest who performed the ceremony.

  The Sacred Thread is worn round the neck; but its position is altered for religious ceremonies, according to whether the wearer is going to worship his Gods, or his departed ancestors, or the saints. When he relieves nature he twines it round his ear; for a Hindoo squats even to urinate, and if the dangling thread were to come into contact with his genitals it would be defiled, and another Thread would have to be procured and consecrated, which, if he were not a Brahman and able, therefore, to consecrate it himself, would be rather expensive.

  So when one sees a Hindoo coming out of the jungle, usually in the company of a friend, with his little brass lota of water in his hand and his Sacred Thread twined round his ear, one knows what he’s been up to.

  FEBRUARY 9TH

  “You know—I am unholy to-day,” remarked His Highness as we started off this afternoon.

  “Unholy? Why?”

  “Because of the birth of my daughter.”

  He went on to explain that for a certain length of time after a birth or a death a family is considered to be unholy, unclean. The period varies according to caste; so the stigma clings to a Brahman for ten days, to a warrior for twelve, to a tradesman for fourteen, and to a laborer for a month, during which periods the afflicted houses are shunned, since contact, even indirect, with their inmates is considered to spread defilement.

  “So,” said His Highness gravely, “if the birth had taken place a day later I could not have gone on my pilgrimage, for then the twelve days would have included the eighteenth, the only auspicious day. As it is, it is a great misfortune; no one will come near to me or attend to me: ‘You are unholy!’ they say.”

  He gazed mournfully at the passing scenery, and then added with a touch of bitterness:

  “Of course my servants are very pleased. They are always praying for a birth or a death so that they may be idle. It is all they think about.”

  I laughed aloud, thinking of Sharma, whom I do not now see. He was undoubtedly making the most of it, I thought, and having a fine old time.

  “And I dare say they go so far as to create fictitious births and deaths?” I said.

  “You are quite right. That is what they all do.”

  “What occurs if a child is still-born?” I inquired. “Is that counted as a birth and a death, or as neither?”

  But he seemed unable to answer this difficult, and perhaps frivolous, question.

  In the Pioneer the other day I was reading of a murder in which a Brahman and a Chamar were involved.

  “What is the Chamar caste?” I asked Babaji Rao who was beside me. “Is it a division of your caste?”

  There was a shrill cry of delight from the Dewan who was stretched on the sofa. “If I had said that to him he would have taken it as the greatest insult,” he called over; “but because it is you he smiles.”

  It was true that the Secretary’s face wore a sickly smile.

  “O dear!” I said. “Is it the lowest caste?” />
  “Not quite,” said Babaji Rao bravely; “but it is one of the lowest, the shoemakers.”

  Abdul is rather a nuisance. He grows increasingly fidgety at our schoolroom relationship, and is always trying to turn it into something more intimate and more public.

  At first it seemed enough that I should walk with him. It was very satisfactory to lead me in front of the houses of his Mohammedan friends, or through the bazaar, the most populous part of the town.

  Walking a little in front of me, when the crowd was very thick, he would call out haughtily to the people to make way for me, or prod them with the ferrule of his umbrella; and once he actually took hold of an inattentive peasant by the shoulder and dragged him roughly out of my path—a thing I feel sure he would never have dared to do if my presence had not appeared to sanction it. Naturally such practices made me extremely uncomfortable and angry, and I had constantly to correct him for them. But even apart from this, I do not much enjoy these excursions “to converse upon natural objects in Hindi,” for his mind is always busy with his own affairs and countless plans by which he can make use of me. I do not blame him for this, of course; being English and a friend to His Highness I am an influential person, and I suppose he would be thought a fool if he did not make the most, while he could, of the opportunities afforded him as my tutor. But it becomes boring nevertheless.

  I should add, in his favor, however, that he does not worry me for money, which he might very easily do, but accepts with at any rate a moderate grace the salary I give him.

  I went to Babaji Rao for advice as to how much this should be, for he is always reproving me for my extravagance. I asked him to advise me on the generous side, and he said that eight rupees a month would be quite enough; so I give Abdul ten. And this, as I say, he receives without comment; if his manner suggests that it could hardly be less, he does not actually ask for more.