of Bhendi Bazaar with portfolio and inkhorn, writing letters for uneducated
Musulmans, petitions for candidates and English accounts for butlers. And
the more he wrote the more convinced he became that he was sacrificing
himself for a woman who could not realize the measure of his fall. Thus for
a time matters remained--little Imtiazan wearing her delicate fingers out
at home, he plying his pen in the street, until one day a dancing-girl from
Lucknow called him to her house to write an important missive on her
behalf. This chance acquaintance ripened into a friendship that boded no
good for Imtiazan: for within a month, amid specious statements of
lucrative employment and fair promises of future well-being, he bade her
prepare to leave the small room and accompany him to a larger house,
fronting a main thoroughfare, which, said he, would henceforth be their
home. The sight of the unscreened windows of her new home struck a chill
into Imtiazan's heart; and when the door opened and she was met by three
elderly Muhammadans who saluted her as their "Bai-Saheb," fear took
possession of her soul. The thin red cases hanging on the wall told her
that the men were musicians; and in response to the mute appeal in her eyes
her husband bade her with almost brutal candour prepare to adopt her old
profession of dancing and singing in order to save him from the hateful
duties of a public letter-writer.
For two days Imtiazan tended by the musicians and their wives was a prey to
the blackest despair, and then deeming it useless to protest, she set
herself courageously to do her husband's bidding and to dance as she had
danced in the house of Gowhar Jan. But she little knew the true depths of
her husband's selfishness. "Money comes not fast enough" was his perpetual
cry and he urged her, at first gently but with ever-increasing vehemence,
to sink still lower. The memory of the past and who knows what higher
instinct helped her to withstand his sordid demands for many days; but at
length, realizing that this was _kismet_ and tired of the perpetual
upbraiding, she consented to do his bidding. So for three weary years the
waters closed over Imtiazan. One day she awoke to find that her husband had
crowned his villainy by decamping with her valuables and all her savings.
She followed and found him, and, pressing into his hand a little extra
money that he had in his hurry overlooked, she bade him a bitter farewell
for ever. She rested a day or two to get herself properly divorced from
him, and then returned alone to the hated life in Bombay.
There Fortune smiled upon her and wealth poured into her lap. Two years
later by dint of careful inquiry she discovered that the stern-faced woman
who had abandoned her in the Lahore market was her uncle's wife, now
widowed and in poverty; and to her she of her bounty gave a pension. For
Imtiazan, though she never forgot, could always forgive and had never lost
the sense of her duty to relations. She also provided for the old man who
had helped her when a child to build the dust-castles beneath the trees of
her old home; and then, while still young and with enough money left to
keep herself in comparative affluence, she turned her back for ever upon
the profession which she loathed and devoted the rest of her life to the
careful rearing of an orphan girl, whom the desire for a child of her own
and the memories of her own youth urged her to adopt. When she died, the
child who had grown up and under her guidance had married a respectable
merchant, mourned for her as one mourns for those who have lovingly
shielded our infancy and youth; and many of the neighbours were sincerely
grieved that Imtiazan had departed for ever.
Such is the life-history of Imtiazan, one of the most famous dancing-girls
Bombay has ever known--a history that lacks not pathos. After her final
renunciation of the profession of singing and dancing she might have
remarried and in fact received more than one offer from men who were
attracted by her kindliness of heart and by her beauty. But she declined
them all with the words "Marriage is not my _kismet_," which is but
the Indian equivalent of "My faith hath departed and my heart is broken."
Surely the earth lies very lightly upon Imtiazan.
VI.
THE BOMBAY MOHURRUM.
STRAY SCENES.
The luxury of grief seems common to mankind all the world over, and the
mourning of the Mohurrum finds its counterpart in the old lamentation for
the slain Adonis, the emotional tale of Sohrab's death at the hand of his
sire Rustom, and the long-drawn sorrow of the Christian Passion. The
Persian inclination towards the emotional side of human nature was not slow
to discover amid the early martyrs of the Faith one figure whose pathetic
end was powerful to awaken every chord of human pity. The picture of the
women and children of high lineage deceived, deserted and tortured with
thirst, of the child's arms lopped at the wrist even at the moment they
were stretched forth for the blessing of the Imam, of the noblest chief of
Islam betrayed and choosing death to dishonour, of his last lonely onset,
his death and mutilation at the hand of a former friend and fellow-champion
of the faith,--this picture indeed appealed and still appeals, as no other
can, to the hidden depths of the Persian heart. The Sunni may object to the
choice of Hasan and Husain as the martyrs most worthy of lamentation,
putting forward in their stead Omar, companion of the Prophet himself, who
lingered for three days in the agony of death, or Othman, the third
Khalifa, who died of thirst, or "the Lion of God," whose life came to so
disastrous a close. But the Shia, while admitting that the death of the
first martyrs may have wrought severer loss to Islam, cannot admit that
their end surpasses in pathos the tale of the bitter tenth of Mohurrum when
the stars quivered in a bloodied sky and the very walls of the palace of
Kufa rained tears of blood as the head of the Martyr was borne before them.
He cannot also approve the Sunni practice of converting a season of
mourning into one of revelry and brawl, for he does not realize the
influence of the local Hindu element upon the Mohurrum and cannot
comprehend that the Indian additions to the festival have their roots in
the deep soil of Hindu spirit-belief. For to the Hindu, and to the Sunni
Mahomedan who has borrowed somewhat from him, all seasons of death and
mourning act as a lode-stone to the unhoused and naked spirits who are ever
wandering through the silent spaces of the East. Some of these spirits we
can appease or coax into becoming guardian-angels by housing them in
handsome cenotaphs; others we can lodge in the horse-shoe or in that great
spirit-house, the tiger, letting them sport for a day or two in the bodies
of our men and youths, who are adorned with yellow stripes symbolical of
their rôle; while other more malevolent spirits can only be driven away by
shouting, buffeting and drumming, such as characterize the Mohurrum season
in Bombay. The Indian element of nervous excitement might in course of ages
have been sobered by the puritanism of Islam but for the presence of the
African, who unites with a firm belief in spirits a phenomenal desire for
noise and brawling; and it is the union of this jovial African element with
the sentimentality of Persia and the spirit-worship of pure Hinduism which
renders the Bombay Mohurrum more lively and more varied than any Mahomedan
celebration in Cairo, Damascus or Constantinople.
Although the regular Mohurrum ceremonies do not commence until the fifth
day of the Mohurrum moon, the Mahomedan quarters of the city are astir on
the first of the month. From morn till eve the streets are filled with
bands of boys, and sometimes girls, blowing raucous blasts on hollow
bamboos, which are adorned with a tin 'panja,' the sacred open hand
emblematical of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, her husband Ali and their
two martyred sons. The sacred five, in the form of the outstretched hand,
adorn nearly all Mohurrum symbols, from the toy trumpet and the top of the
banner-pole to the horseshoe rod of the devotee and the 'tazia' or domed
bier. Youths, preceded by drummers and clarionet-players, wander through
the streets laying all the shop-keepers under contribution for
subscriptions; the well-to-do householder sets to building a 'sabil' or
charity-fountain in one corner of his verandah or on a site somewhat
removed from the fairway of traffic; while a continuous stream of people
afflicted by the evil-eye flows into the courtyard of the Bara Imam Chilla
near the Nal Bazaar to receive absolution from the peacock-feather brush
and sword there preserved. Meanwhile in almost every street where a 'tabut'
is being prepared elegiac discourses ('waaz') are nightly delivered up to
the tenth of the month by a _maulvi_, who draws from Rs. 30 to Rs. 100
for his five nights' description of the martyrdom of Husain; while but a
little distance away boys painted to resemble tigers leap to the rhythm of
a drum, and the Arab mummer with the split bamboo shatters the nerves of
the passerby by suddenly cracking it behind his back. The fact that this
Arab usually takes up a strong position near a 'tazia' suggests the idea
that he must originally have represented a guardian or scapegoat, designed
to break by means of his abuse, buffoonery and laughter the spell of the
spirits who long for quarters within the rich mimic tomb; and the fact that
the crowds who come to gaze in admiration on the 'tazia' never retort or
round upon him for the sudden fright or anger that he evokes gives one the
impression that the crack of the bamboo is in their belief a potent scarer
of unhoused and malignant spirits.
Turn off the main thoroughfare and you may perhaps find a lean Musalman,
with a green silk skullcap, sitting in a raised and well-lighted recess in
front of an urn in which frankincense is burning. He has taken a vow to be
a "Dula" or bridegroom during the Mohurrum. There he sits craning his neck
over the smoke from the urn and swaying from side to side, while at
intervals three companions who squat beside him give vent to a cry of "Bara
Imam ki dosti yaro din" (cry "din" for the friendship of the twelve Imams).
Then on a sudden the friends rise and bind on to the Dula's chest a pole
surmounted with the holy hand, place in his hand a brush of peacock's
feathers and lead him thus bound and ornamented out into the highway.
Almost on the threshold of his passage a stout Punjabi Musulman comes
forward to consult him. "Away, away" cry the friends "Naya jhar hai" (this
is a new tree), meaning thereby that the man is a new spirit-house and has
never before been possessed. A little further on the procession, which has
now swelled to considerable size, is stopped by a Mahomedan from Ahmednagar
who seeks relief. He places his hand upon the Dula's shoulder and asks for
a sign. "Repeat the creed," mutters the ecstatic bridegroom. "Repeat the
durud," say the Dula's supporters; and all present commence to repeat the
"Kalmah" or creed and the "Durud" or blessing. Then turning to the
Mahomedan who stopped him, the bridegroom of Husein cries: "Sheikh
Muhammad, thou art possessed by a jinn--come to my shrine on Thursday
next," and with these words sets forth again upon his wanderings. Further
down the Bhendi Bazaar a Deccan Mhar woman comes forward for enlightenment,
and the Dula, after repeating the Kalmah, promises that she will become a
mother before the year expires; while close to Phulgali a Konkani Musulman
woman, who has been possessed for six months by a witch (Dakan), is flicked
thrice with the peacock-feather brush and bidden to the Dula's shrine on
the following Thursday. So the Dula fares gradually forward, now stopped by
a Kunbi with a sick child, now by some Musulman mill-hands, until he
reaches the Bismillah shrine, where he falls forward on his face with
frothing mouth and convulsed body. The friends help the spirit which racks
him to depart by blowing into his ear a few verses of the Koran; whereat
the Dula, after a possession of about four hours, regains consciousness,
looks around in surprise, and retires to his home fatigued but at last
sane.
Wherever a "tazia" or tomb is a-building, there gather all the Mohurrum
performers, the Nal Sahebs or Lord Horse-shoes, the tigers and the mummers
of Protean disguise. The spot becomes an "Akhada" or tryst at which the
tomb-builders entertain all comers with draughts of sherbet or sugared
water, but not with betel which has no place in seasons of mourning. Here
for example comes a band of Marathas and Kamathis with bells upon their
ankles, who form a ring in front of the "tazia", while their leader chants
in a loud voice:--
"Alif se Allah; Be se Bismillah; Jum se meri
Jan. Tajun Imam Husein Ki nyaz dharun."
"Alif for Allah; B for Bismillah; J for my life.
An offering is this to Husein."
The chorus take up the refrain at intervals accompanying it with the tinkle
of the ankle-bells; and then as distant drumming heralds the approach of a
fresh party, they repeat the Mohurrum farewell "Ishki Husein" (Love of
Husein) and pass away with the answer of the tryst-folk: "Yadi Husein"
(Memory of Husein) still ringing in their ears. The new party is composed
of Bombay Musulman youths, the tallest of whom carries an umbrella made out
of pink, green and white paper, under which the rest crowd and sing the
following couplet relating to the wife and daughter of Husein:--
"Bano ne Sakinah se kaha. Tum ko khabar hai
Baba gae mare!"
"Bano said unto Sakinah. Have you heard that
your father is dead?"
This party in turn yields place to a band of pipers and drummers,
accompanying men who whirl torches round their head so skilfully that the
eye sees nought but a moving circle of flame; and they are succeeded by
Musulman men and boys, disguised as Konkani fishermen and fishwives, who
chant elegies to Husein and keep the rhythm by clapping their hands or by
swinging to and fro small earthen pots pierced to serve as a lamp. The last
troupe, dressed in long yellow shirts and loose yellow turbans, represent
Swami Narayan priests and pass in silence before the glittering simulacrum
of the Martyr's tomb.
The most curious feature of the Mohurrum celebration is the roystering and
brawling of the _Tolis_ or street-bands which takes places for two or
three nights after the fifth day of the month. Each street has its own band
ready to parade the various quarters of the city and fight with the bands
of rival streets. If the rivalry is good-humoured, little harm accrues; but
if, as is sometimes the case, feelings of real resentment are cherished,
heads are apt to be broken and the leaders find themselves consigned to the
care of the Police. It is difficult to see the connection between these
brawling street-companies and the lamentation for Hasan and Husein; but the
rivalry of the _mohollas_ recalls the free-fighting which used once to
take place between the various quarters of Gujarat and Kathiawar towns
during the Holi festival, while the beating, shouting and general
pandemonium evoked by the _Tolis_ are probably akin to the
extravagance once practised at the beating of the bounds in England and
Scotland and are primarily designed to scare away evil-spirits from the
various quarters of the city. The _Tolis_ are indeed a relic of pure
Hinduism--of aboriginal spirit-belief, and have in the course of centuries
been gradually associated with the great Mahomedan Festival of Tears.
Originally they can have had no connection with the Mohurrum and are in
essence as much divorced from the lamentation over the slaughter at Karbala
as are the mummers, the Nal Sahebs and the Lords of the conchshell (Sain
Kowra) of the modern celebration from the true Mahomedan who wanders back
from the sea-shore uttering the cry of grief--
"Albida, re albida, Ya Huseini albida."
"Farewell, farewell, ah, my Husein, farewell!"
VII.
THE POSSESSION OF AFIZA.
It was quite evident that something was seriously wrong with Abdulla the
Dhobi. His features had lost their former placidity and wore an aspect of
troubled wonder; the clothes which he erstwhiles washed and returned to
their owners with such regularity were now brought back long after the
proper date and occasionally were not returned at all; and the easy good
temper which once characterized his conversation had yielded place to
sudden outbursts of anger or protracted spells of sulkiness. The major-domo
consulted on the point could only suggest that Abdulla's ill-temper was
typical of the inherent "badmashi" of the Dhobi nature and that probably
Abdulla had taken to nocturnal potations, while the youngest member of the
household unhesitatingly laid down that Abdulla had been seized by a "bhut"
or in other words was possessed of a devil. When the former suggestion was
laid before Abdulla, he contemned it with unmeasured scorn and then turned
and rent the spirit of the butler with winged words, but the small boy's
opinion seemed to give him pause. He held his peace for a moment, gazing
earthwards and rubbing a small heap of dust towards him with his toe; and
then on a sudden he burst out into the tale which is here set down in his
own words:--
"Nay, Saheb, I am possessed of no devil, but my wife Afiza is sore troubled
by one. Only three months ago I sent for her from my village, as she was
expecting to become a mother and I was desirous of looking early upon my
first-born child; and for six weeks she dwelt contentedly with me in the
house which I have rented near the ghat. And then the child was born--a
child without blemish; and Afiza and I were happy. But, Saheb, the shadow
of evil was even then drawing nigh unto us. For on the sixth day after
birth, when the midwife was about to light the four-wicked lamp for the
'chatti' ceremony, Afiza suddenly cast the child from her, leaped wildly
from the couch, tearing at her hair and swaying to and fro as one demented,
and broke the lamp with her hands. And the midwife fled from the room
crying for help, and brought my mother and my sister in to try and soothe
her. And even while they wrestled with her spirit someone set light to the
urn of frankincense, for it was the evening of Thursday; and as the thick
smoke curled upwards towards Afiza, she trembled and gasped out: 'This is
my house; and this woman hath been delivered on the spot where I died in
childbirth five years ago! I will never cease troubling her, for she hath
forgotten even to burn a little 'loban' (frankincense) for the repose of my
spirit.' So saying my wife fell senseless on the ground and remained
motionless for thirty minutes until the spirit had fled. And, Saheb, from
that day forward not an evening passes but the 'suwandi' (the spirit of a
woman who has died in travail) lays hold upon her, and my house has become
a place of evil and a byword among the neighbours. Several exorcists,
Siyanas and Syeds have we consulted, but all in vain. Their ministrations
only make her worse. What can be done!"
One can hardly conjecture the ultimate fate of Abdulla and his family, had
not some one who took an interest in the case suggested a final resort to
the Syed from Cambay, who some little time ago opened in Goghari street a
branch of the famous Gujarat shrine of Miran Datar. To him Abdulla
half-hopeful, half-desperate, repaired: and the Syed came into his house
and gave Afiza a potion composed of incense-ashes and water from the Miran
shrine. But the evil spirit was terribly violent; and it required regular
treatment of this nature for fully twenty days ere it could be dislodged.
Evening after evening Afiza was taken into the presence of Syed, who
summoned forth the spirit with a drink of the sacrosanct water; and at home
Abdulla and his mother who had been supplied with water and ashes by the
Syed, were wont likewise to summon the spirit at any hour which they felt
would cause it inconvenience. Thus the struggle between the powers of light
and darkness for the soul of Afiza continued, until at length the evil
spirit deemed it wise to depart; and on the twenty-first day, when it was
racking Afiza for the last time, it demanded as the final price of its
departure the liver of a black-goat. So Abdulla hearkened to the spirit's
will and buried the pledge of his wife's recovery in a new earthen pot just
at the spot where the four roads meet near his house And Afiza was at
peace.
[Illustration: Possession of Afiza.]
Since that date nought has occurred to disturb Abdulla's peace of mind. The
Syed of Goghari street has earned well-merited fame among the poorer
Musulman inhabitants of that quarter; Abdulla has cast off his ill temper
as it were a garment; Afiza the possessed has become Afiza the
self-possessed, helping Abdulla to earn his livelihood and obtain the
approval of his masters; and the child, unharmed by the Evil Eye and
beloved of his parents, is daily waxing in favour with God and man.
According to Abdulla the only spirit which occasionally attacks him is a
spirit of mischief not unknown to the parents of healthy little boys.
VIII.
A KASUMBA DEN.
Wander down one of the greatest arteries of the city and you will perhaps
notice on the east side of the street a double-storied house bearing all
the appearance of prolonged neglect and decay. Enter the low door and take
a sharp turn to the right and you will find yourself at length on an ill-
smelling landing with a creaking ladder-like staircase in one corner,
enveloped from top to bottom in darkness so profound that one can almost
conjure up visions of sudden death from the assassin's dagger. After a
moment's hesitation you commence to grope your way upwards: the staircase
sways and creaks beneath your feet; the air is heavy with strange odours;
something,--probably a cat--scuttles past you and nearly upsets your
balance; and putting out your hand to steady yourself your fingers touch
something clammy and corpselike which turns out to be a Ghati labourer,
naked save for a loin-cloth, asleep in the narrow niche between the walls
of the ground-floor and the first storey. One wonders what he pays for this
precarious accommodation, in which a sudden movement during sleep may mean
a sheer drop down the dark staircase. But fortunately he sleeps motionless,
like one physically tired out, perchance after dragging bales about the
dock sheds since early morn or wandering all day round the city with heavy
loads upon his head.
At length on the second storey a half-open door casts an arrow of light
upon your path. You hail it with joy after the Cimmerian gloom of the lower
floors; and, pushing the door further ajar, you find yourself in a square
low room lit by two windows which command a view of the street below. It is
carpeted with cheap date-leaf mats and a faded polychrome "dhurri"; dirty
white cushions are propped against the wall below the windows; a few square
desk-like boxes lie in front of the cushions; and in a semi-recumbent
attitude around the room are some 20 or 30 men--Bombay and Gujarat
Mahomedans, men from Hindustan and one or two Daudi Bohras, the regular
customers of the "Kasumba" saloon. There is one woman in the room--a member
of the frail sisterhood, now turned faithful, nursing an elderly and
peevish Lothario with a cup of sago-milk gruel, which opium-eaters consider
such a delicacy: while the other customers sit in groups talking with the
preternatural solemnity born of their favourite drug, and now and again
passing a remark to the cheery-looking landlord with the white skull-cap
and henna-tinged beard.