THERE are a number of ways of furnishing a house in Calcutta. I, who
have known the ins and outs of the place for twenty odd years, have
learned the unsatisfactoriness of all of them, and am prepared to
explain. You can be elaborately done up by a fine _belati_ upholsterer,
who will provide you with spindle-legged chairs in velvet brocade, and
æsthetic window curtains with faded pink roses on them, everything only
about six months behind the London shops, with prices however
considerably in advance. This way is popular with Viceroys. Or you may
go to the ordinary shops and get Westbourne Grove sorts of things only
slightly depreciated as to value and slightly enhanced as to cost,
paying cash—a way usually adopted by people of no imagination. Or you
may attend the auction sale that speeds the departure of some home-going
memsahib, and buy her effects for a song: but that must be at the
beginning of the hot weather, when the migration of memsahibs occurs. Or
you can go to Bow Bazar, where all things are of honourable antiquity,
and there purchase pathetic three-legged memorials of old Calcutta,
springless oval-backed sofas that once upheld the ponderous dignity of
the East India Company, tarnished mirrors which may have reflected the
wanton charms of Madame Le Grand. Baboos sell them, taking knowledge
only of their outward persons and their present utility; and they stand
huddled in little hot low-roofed shops, intimate with the common
teak-wood things of yesterday, condescending to gaudy Japanese vases and
fly-blown coloured prints and cracked lamps and mismatched crockery. Bow
Bazar is not always bad and it is always cheap, granting some previous
experience of baboo morals, and the proprietors charge you nothing for
the poetry of your bargain. They set it off, perhaps, against necessary
repairs. This is not a popular way, as the baboos will testify, but it
is a pleasing one, and it is the way the Brownes took in the main,
supplementing these plenishings with a few from the China Bazar, where a
multitude of the almond-eyed sell you wicker chairs and tables.
It is a divinely simple thing to furnish a house in India. It must be
cleaned and it must be matted. This is done in a certain number of hours
while you sleep, or ride, or walk, or take your pleasure, by a God of
Immediate Results, whom you colloquially dub the “bearer,” working
through an invisible agency of coolies. Then you may go and live in it
with two chairs and a table if you like, and people will only think you
have a somewhat immoderate hatred of hangings and furniture and other
obstacles to the free circulation of air. This you might easily possess
to an extreme, and nobody will consider you any the worse for it. I
should have added an “almirah” to the list of your necessaries, however.
You would be criticised if you had not one or more almirahs. An almirah
is a wardrobe, unless it contains shelves instead of hooks, and then it
is a tall cupboard with doors. Almirahs, therefore, receive all your
personal property, from a dressing-gown to a box of sardines, and it is
not possible to live decently or respectably in India without them. But
the rest is at your good pleasure, and nobody will expect you to have
anything but plated forks and bazar china. Outward circumstance lies not
in these things, but in the locality of your residence and the size of
your compound. If you wish to add to your dignity, buy another pony; if
you wish to enhance it, let the pony be a horse and the horse a Waler.
But think not to aggrandize yourself in the eyes of your fellow
Anglo-Indians by treasures of Chippendale or of Sèvres, by rare
tapestries or modern masters, or even a piano. Dust and the mosquitoes
and the monsoon war against all these things; but chiefly our
inconstancy to the country. We are in conscious exile here for twenty or
twenty-five years, and there is a general theory that it is too hot and
too expensive to make the exile any more than comfortable. Beside which,
do we not pass a quarter of our existence in the cabins of the P. and
O.? But I must not digress from the Brownes’ experiences to my own
opinions.
The Brownes’ ticca-gharry turned into Bow Bazar out of Chowringhee, out
of Calcutta’s pride among her thoroughfares, broad and clean, and facing
the wide green Maidan, lined with European shops, and populous with the
gharries[17] of the sahibs, into the narrow crookedness of the native
city, where the proprietors are all Baboo This, or Sheik That, who sit
upon the thresholds of their establishments smoking the peaceful
hubble-bubble, and waiting until it please Allah or Lakshmi to send them
a customer. Very manifold are the wants that Bow Bazar provides for,
wants of the sahib, of the “kala sahib,”[18] of its own swarming
population. You can buy a suit of clothes there—oh, very cheap—or a seer
of rice; all sorts of publications in English, Bengali, and Urdu; a
beautiful oil painting for a rupee, a handful of sticky native
sweetmeats for a pice. You can have your beard shaved, your horoscope
cast, your photograph taken, all at a rate which will deeply astonish
you. There is a great deal of noise in the Bow Bazar, coming chiefly
from strenuous brown throats, a great deal of dust, a great number and
variety of odours. But there the sahiblok, in the midst of luxury, can
enjoy economy—and you can’t have everything.
Footnote 17:
Carriages.
Footnote 18:
“Black sahibs,” i.e. Eurasians.
The sellers of sahib’s furniture have the largest shops in Bow Bazar,
and the heaviest stock; they are important among the merchants; they
often speak a little English. The baboo to whom the Brownes first
addressed themselves had this accomplishment, and he wore the dual
European garment of white duck, and a coat. He was a short baboo, very
black, with a round face so expressive of a sense of humour that young
Browne remarked to Helen privately that he was sure the fellow had some
European blood in him, in spite of the colour—no pukka Bengali ever
grinned like that!
“What iss it, sir, that it iss your wish to buy?” he inquired. He spoke
so rapidly that his words seemed the output of one breath; yet they were
perfectly distinct. It is the manner of the native who speaks English,
and the East Indians have borrowed it from him.
“Oh! we want to buy a lot of things, Baboo!” said Mr. Browne,
familiarly, “at half your regular prices, and a large discount for cash!
What have you got? Got any chairs?”
“Oh yess indeed; certainlee! Will you please to come this way?”
“This way” led through a labyrinth of furniture, new and old, of glass
and crockery and chipped ornaments, a dusty haven of dismayed household
gods. “What have you got in there, Baboo?” asked young Browne, as they
passed an almirah revealing rows of tins and labels.
“Stores, sir,—verree best qualitty stores. You can see fo’ you’self,
sir—Crosse an’ Blackwell——”
“Oh yes, Baboo! And how long did you say they’d been there?”
“Onlee _one_ month, sir,” the baboo replied, attempting an expression of
surprise and injury. “I can tell you the name of the ship they arrived
in, sir.”
“Of course you can, Baboo. But never mind. We don’t want any to-day.
Let’s see the chairs. Now, Helen,” he continued, as the baboo went on in
advance, “you see what we are subject to in this ungodly place. Those
pease and gooseberries and asparaguses have probably been in Calcutta a
good deal longer than I have. They look like old sojourners; I wouldn’t
give them a day under six years. They are doubtless very cheap, but
think, Helen, of what _might_ happen to my inside if you gave me green
pease out of Bow Bazar!” Mrs. Browne looked aghast. “But I never will,
George!” said she, solemnly. And young Browne made her vow it there and
then. “There are two or three decent European shops here,” he said, with
unction, “where they make a point of not poisoning more people than they
can help. You pay rather largely for that comfortable assurance, I
believe, but it’s worth having. I’d have more faith in the stability of
the family, Helen, if you would promise always to go to them for tinned
things.”
Helen promised effusively, and it is to her credit that she always
informed young Browne, before consumption, whenever a domestic exigency
made her break her word.
They climbed up a dark and winding stair that led out upon a flat roof,
crossed the roof and entered a small room, borrowed from the premises of
some other baboo. “Hold your skirts well up, Helen; it’s just the place
for centipedes,” her husband remarked callously; and Mrs. Browne
exhibited a disregard for her ankles that would have been remarkable
under any other circumstances.
[Illustration: IT’S JUST THE PLACE FOR CENTIPEDES.]
“Here, you see, sir, all the chairs,” stated the little baboo, waving
his hand. “I must tell you, sir, that some are off teak and some off
shisham wood. Thee shisham are the superior.”
“You mean, baboo,” said young Browne, seriously, “that the shisham are
the less inferior. That’s a better way of putting it, baboo.”
“Perhaps so, sir. Yessir, doubtless you are right, sir. The less
inferior—the more grammatical!”
“Precisely. And now about the prices, baboo. What is your exact
overcharge for fellows like this? He’s shisham, isn’t he? And he’s about
as sound as any of ’em.”
“_Best_ shisham, sir—perfeckkly sound—_not_ secon’ hand—our own make.
Feel the weight of thiss, sir!”
“All right, baboo—I know. What’s the price?”
“If thee ladee will just sit down in it for a minit shee will see how
comfortable it iss!”
“Trifle no longer, baboo—what’s the dom?”
“The price off that chair, sir, is _eight_ rupees.”
Mr. Browne sank into it with a pretence at gasping. “You can’t mean
that, baboo. Nothing like that. Eight rupees! You’re dreaming, baboo.
You forget that you only paid two for it. You’re dreaming, baboo—or
you’re joking!”
Hurry Doss Mitterjee smiled in deep appreciation of the gentleman’s
humour. He even chuckled, with a note of deprecation.
“Ah, no, sir! You will pardon me for saying that is a mistake, sir! In
_bissiness_ I doo not joke, never! For those chairs I pay _seven_ rupees
four annas, sir! It iss a small profit but it iss contentable. I doo
_not_ ask more, sir!”
“This is very sad, baboo!” said Mr. Browne seriously. “This is very sad,
indeed! I understood that you were a person of probity, who never asked
more than a hundred per cent. But I know the value of shisham chairs,
and this is four hundred—Oh, very sad, indeed! Now see here, I’ll give
you three rupees apiece for these chairs, and take six.”
“Salaam!” said the baboo, touching his forehead with ironical gratitude
and pushing back the chair. “Nossir!”
“You may take them at coss price, sir—at seven four you may take them,
and I make no profit: but perhaps I get your custom. Take them—_seven_
four!”
Mr. Browne turned away with a slight sigh. “Come along, dear,” he said
to his wife, “this man sells only to Rajahs and Members of Council.”
The baboo ignored the pleasantry this time—the moment had come for
action. “_What_ do you give, sir?” he said, following them—“for the sake
off bissiness, _what_ do you give?”
“Four rupees!”
“Five eight!”
“Four eight, baboo—there!”
“Ah, sir, I cannot. Believe _me_ they coss five eight to buy!”
“Look here, baboo—I’ll give you five rupees apiece for six of those
shisham wood chairs, every one as good as this, and I’ll pay you when
you send them—that’s thirty rupees—and not another pice! Helen, be
careful of these steps.”
“To what address, sir? Will to-morrow morning be sufficient early, sir?”
“George!” exclaimed Helen, as they reached the outer world of Bow Bazar,
“what a horrid little cheat of a man! Did you hear him say at first that
they cost seven four to make?”
“Oh, my dear,” young Browne responded, superiorly. “That’s a trifle! You
don’t know the baboo.”
“Well!” said his wife, admiringly, “I don’t know how you kept your
patience, George!”
Whereat Mr. Browne looked still more superior, and informed Mrs. Browne
that the only way to deal with these fellows was to chaff ’em; make up
your mind in the beginning that you’re going to be done in the eye, and
act accordingly. They always score, he added, with true Anglo-Indian
resignation.
They bought a table next, from a very fat old gentleman—simply clad—in a
beard and a dhoty.[19] The beard and the dhoty were much the same
colour, and both fell so abundantly about his person that it would be
difficult to say which was most useful to him as an article of apparel.
And his moral obliquity was concealed under more rolls and pads of
oily-brown adipose tissue than could often be seen in Bow Bazar. He must
have been a rascal, as young Browne said, or being a Hindu he wouldn’t
have had a beard.
Footnote 19:
Cloth for legs.
It was a small mahogany dining table, second-hand, and its owner wanted
twenty rupees for it.
“I _think_,” said young Browne, “that the memsahib might give you
fourteen!”
The usual humbly sarcastic salaam—it was a very excellent table—the
baboo could not think of parting with it for that.
“All right!” said Mr. Browne, “the memsahib says she won’t give more
than fourteen, and that’s very dear. But I’ll make you one offer—just
one, mind, baboo! I’ll give you fifteen. Now take it or leave it—one
word!”
The baboo salaamed so that his beard swept the ground, and fervently
refused.
“Very well, baboo! Now I don’t want it at any price, see if you can
bargain with the memsahib.”
“_Eight_een rupees, memsahib!” insinuated the old fellow, “very cheap.”
“No, indeed!” Helen exclaimed with indignation, rising to the occasion,
“I won’t give you any more than fourteen.”
“_Chowdrah rupia, memsahib—fo_-teen rupee! But the sahib he offer
fifteen!”
“Oh, I don’t want it at all now,” said the sahib, who stood in the door
with his back turned and whistled. “Now you must bargain with the
memsahib.”
The baboo looked at his customers anxiously for a moment. “For sixteen
rupees you take it,” he said.
“Don’t want it,” responded Mr. Browne.
“Alright—for fifteen?”
“Will you give him fifteen, Helen?”
“Certainly not, dear! Fourteen.”
“Fifteen the sahib _say_ he give!” cried the baboo, his beard wagging
with righteous reproach. “Take it for fifteen!” But Mr. and Mrs. Browne
had made their way out. The baboo followed reminding and entreating for
a hundred yards. They were deaf. Then he wheeled round upon them in
front. “Very well, you give me fourteen?” The Brownes went back and left
their address, which was weak in them, I consider; but I have no doubt
that to this day that bearded baboo considers himself an injured person,
and the victim of a most disastrous _bandobust_.[20]
Footnote 20:
Bargain.
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