LIFE IN INDIA.
“I HAVE SEEN BENGAL: THERE THE TEETH ARE RED AND THE MOUTH IS BLACK[12].”
1822, _November_.—Calcutta—First Impressions—Style
of Indian Houses—Furniture—Mats—Arabs—Departure of
the Marquis of Hastings—Fogs—Christmas-Day—Indian
Servants—The Sircar—Thieves—The Hot
Winds—Pankhās—Fire-flies—North-Westers—The
Foliage—Musquitoes—Elephantiasis—Insects—The Chŭrŭk
Pooja—Religious Mendicants.
The four troops of the 16th Lancers, from the ‘Ely,’ disembarked, and
encamped on the glacis of Fort William; the ‘General Hewitt,’ with the
remainder of the regiment, did not arrive until six weeks afterwards,
having watered at the Cape.
Calcutta has been styled the City of Palaces, and it well deserves the
name. The Government House stands on the Maidān, near the river; the
city, and St. Andrew’s Church, lie behind it; to the left is that part
called Chowringhee, filled with beautiful detached houses, surrounded by
gardens; the verandahs, which generally rise from the basement to the
highest story, give, with their pillars, an air of lightness and beauty
to the buildings, and protecting the dwellings from the sun, render them
agreeable for exercise in the rainy season.
The houses are all stuccoed on the outside, and seem as if built of
stone. The rent of unfurnished houses in Chowringhee is very high; we
gave 325 rupees a month for ours, the larger ones are from 4 to 500 per
month.
The style of an Indian house differs altogether from that of one in
England.
The floors are entirely covered with Indian matting, than which nothing
can be cooler or more agreeable. For a few weeks, in the cold season,
fine Persian carpets, or carpets from Mirzapore are used. The windows
and doors are many; the windows are to the ground, like the French;
and, on the outside, they are also protected by Venetian windows of
the same description. The rooms are large and lofty, and to every
sleeping-apartment a bathing-room is attached. All the rooms open into
one another, with folding-doors, and pankhās are used during the hot
weather. The most beautiful French furniture was to be bought in Calcutta
of M. de Bast, at whose shop marble tables, fine mirrors, and luxurious
couches were in abundance. Very excellent furniture was also to be had
at the Europe shops, made by native workmen under the superintendence
of European cabinet and furniture makers; and furniture of an inferior
description in the native bazaars.
On arriving in Calcutta, I was charmed with the climate; the weather was
delicious; and nothing could exceed the kindness we experienced from our
friends. I thought India a most delightful country, and could I have
gathered around me the dear ones I had left in England, my happiness
would have been complete. The number of servants necessary to an
establishment in India, is most surprising to a person fresh from Europe:
it appeared the commencement of ruin. Their wages are not high, and they
find themselves in food; nevertheless, from their number, the expense is
very great.
THE SIRCAR.
A very useful but expensive person in an establishment is a sircar; the
man attends every morning early to receive orders, he then proceeds to
the bazaars, or to the Europe shops, and brings back for inspection and
approval, furniture, books, dresses, or whatever may have been ordered:
his profit is a heavy per centage on all he purchases for the family.
[Illustration: SIRCAR.
فاني پارکس]
One morning our sircar, in answer to my having observed that the
articles purchased were highly priced, said, “You are my father and my
mother, and I am your poor little child: I have only taken two annas in
the rupee, dustoorie.”
This man’s language was a strong specimen of Eastern hyperbole: one day
he said to me, “You are my mother, and my father, and _my God_!” With
great disgust, I reproved him severely for using such terms, when he
explained, “you are my protector and my support, therefore you are to me
as my God.” The offence was never repeated. The sketch of “the sircar”
is an excellent representation of one in Calcutta: they dress themselves
with the utmost care and most scrupulous neatness in white muslin,
which is worn exactly as represented; and the turban often consists of
twenty-one yards of fine Indian muslin, by fourteen inches in breadth,
most carefully folded and arranged in small plaits; his reed pen is
behind his ear, and the roll of paper in his hand is in readiness for the
orders of the sāhib. The shoes are of common leather; sometimes they wear
them most elaborately embroidered in gold and silver thread and coloured
beads. All men in India wear mustachoes; they look on the bare faces of
the English with amazement and contempt. The sircar is an Hindoo, as
shown by the opening of the vest on _the right_ side, and the white dot,
the mark of his caste, between his eyes.
Dustoorie is an absolute tax. The durwān will turn from the gate the
boxwallas, people who bring articles for sale in boxes, unless he gets
dustoorie for admittance. If the sāhib buy any article, his sirdar-bearer
will demand dustoorie. If the mem sāhiba purchase finery, the ayha must
have her dustoorie—which, of course, is added by the boxwalla to the
price the gentleman is compelled to pay.
Dustoorie is from two to four pice in the rupee; one anna, or one
sixteenth of the rupee is, I imagine, generally taken. But all these
contending interests are abolished, if the sircar purchase the article:
he takes the lion’s share. The servants hold him in great respect, as he
is generally the person who answers for their characters, and places them
in service.
It appeared curious to be surrounded by servants who, with the exception
of the tailor, could not speak one word of English; and I was forced to
learn to speak Hindostanee.
To a griffin, as a new comer is called for the first year, India is a
most interesting country; every thing appears on so vast a scale, and the
novelty is so great.
In _December_, the climate was so delightful, it rendered the country
preferable to any place under the sun; could it always have continued the
same, I should have advised all people to flee unto the East.
My husband gave me a beautiful Arab, Azor by name, but as the Sā’īs
always persisted in calling him Aurora, or a Roarer, we were obliged
to change his name to Rajah. I felt very happy cantering my beautiful
high-caste Arab on the race-course at 6 A.M., or, in the evening, on
the well-watered drive in front of the Government House. Large birds,
called adjutants, stalk about the Maidān in numbers; and on the heads of
the lions that crown the entrance arches to the Government House, you
are sure to see this bird (the hargilla or gigantic crane) in the most
picturesque attitudes, looking as if a part of the building itself.
The arrival of the 16th Lancers, and the approaching departure of the
Governor-general, rendered Calcutta extremely gay. Dinner parties and
fancy balls were numerous; at the latter, the costumes were excellent and
superb.
_Dec. 16th._—The Marquis of Hastings gave a ball at the Government-house,
to the gentlemen of the Civil and Military Services, and the inhabitants
of Calcutta; the variety of costume displayed by Nawābs, Rajahs,
Mahrattas, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Mussulmāns, and Hindoos, and the gay
attire of the military, rendered it a very interesting spectacle. Going
to the ball was a service of danger, on account of the thickness of one
of those remarkable fogs so common an annoyance during the cold season at
the Presidency. It was impossible to see the road, although the carriage
had lights, and two mashalchees, with torches in their hands, preceded
the horses; but the glare of the mashals, and the shouts of the men,
prevented our meeting with any accident in the dense cloud by which we
were surrounded.
Palanquins were novel objects; the bearers go at a good rate; the pace is
neither walking nor running, it is the amble of the biped, in the style
of the amble taught the native horses, accompanied by a grunting noise
that enables them to keep time. Well-trained bearers do not shake the
pālkee. Bilees, hackeries, and khraunchies, came in also for their share
of wonder.
So few of the gentry in England can afford to keep riding-horses for
their wives and daughters, that I was surprised, on my arrival in
Calcutta, to see almost every lady on horseback; and that not on hired
hacks, but on their own good steeds. My astonishment was great one
morning, on beholding a lady galloping away, on a fiery horse, only three
weeks after her confinement. What nerves the woman must have had!
_Dec. 16th._—The Civil Service, the military, and the inhabitants
of Calcutta, gave a farewell ball to the Marquis and Marchioness of
Hastings, after which the Governor-general quitted India.
On Christmas-day the servants adorned the gateways with hārs, i.e.
chaplets, and garlands of fresh flowers. The bearers and dhobees
brought in trays of fruit, cakes, and sweetmeats, with garlands of
flowers upon them, and requested bakhshish, probably the origin of our
Christmas-boxes. We accepted the sweetmeats, and gave some rupees in
return.
They say that, next to the Chinese, the people of India are the most
dexterous thieves in the world; we kept a durwān, or porter at the gate,
two chaukidārs (watchmen), and the compound (ground surrounding the
house) was encompassed by a high wall.
1823. _Jan. 12th._—There was much talking below amongst the bearers;
during the night the shout of the chaukidārs was frequent, to show they
were on the alert; nevertheless, the next morning a friend, who was
staying with us, found that his desk with gold mohurs and valuables in
it, had been carried off from his room, together with some clothes and
his military cloak. We could not prove the theft, but had reason to
believe it was perpetrated by a khansāmān (head table servant) whom we
had discharged, connived at by the durwān and chaukidārs.
_March 20th._—I have now been four months in India, and my idea of the
climate has altered considerably; the hot winds are blowing; it is very
oppressive; if you go out during the day, I can compare it to nothing but
the hot blast you would receive in your face, were you suddenly to open
the door of an oven.
The evenings are cool and refreshing; we drive out late; and the
moonlight evenings at present are beautiful; when darkness comes on, the
fire-flies illuminate the trees, which appear full of flitting sparks
of fire; these little insects are in swarms; they are very small and
ugly, with a light like the glow-worm’s in the tail, which, as they
fly, appears and suddenly disappears: how beautifully the trees in the
adjoining grounds are illuminated at night, by these little dazzling
sparks of fire!
The first sight of a pankhā is a novelty to a griffin. It is a monstrous
fan, a wooden frame covered with cloth, some ten, twenty, thirty, or
more feet long, suspended from the ceiling of a room, and moved to and
fro by a man outside by means of a rope and pullies, and a hole in the
wall through which the rope passes; the invention is a native one; they
are the greatest luxuries, and are also handsome, some being painted and
gilt, the ropes covered with silk, and so shaped or scooped, as to admit
their vibratory motion without touching the chandeliers, suspended in the
same line with the pankhā, and when at rest, occupying the space scooped
out. In the up country, the pankhā is always pulled during the night over
the chārpāī or bed.
The weather is very uncertain; sometimes _very_ hot, then suddenly comes
a north-wester, blowing open every door in the house, attended with a
deluge of heavy rain, falling straight down in immense drops: the other
evening it was dark as night, the lightning blazed for a second or two,
with the blue sulphureous light you see represented on the stage; the
effect was beautiful; the forked lightning was remarkably strong; I did
not envy the ships in the bay.
The foliage of the trees, so luxuriously beautiful and so novel, is to
me a source of constant admiration. When we girls used to laugh at the
odd trees on the screens, we wronged the Chinese in imagining they were
the productions of fancy; the whole nation was never before accused of
having had a fanciful idea, and those trees were copied from nature,
as I have found from seeing the same in my drives and rides around
Calcutta. The country is quite flat, but the foliage very fine and rich.
The idleness of the natives is excessive; for instance, my ayha will
dress me, after which she will go to her house, eat her dinner, and then
returning, will sleep in one corner of my room on the floor for the whole
day. The bearers also do nothing but eat and sleep, when they are not
pulling the pankhās.
Some of the natives are remarkably handsome, but appear far from being
strong men. It is _impossible_ to do with a few servants, you _must_
have many; their customs and prejudices are inviolable; a servant will
do such and such things, and nothing more. They are great plagues; much
more troublesome than English servants. I knew not before the oppressive
power of the hot winds, and find myself as listless as any Indian
lady is universally considered to be; I can now excuse, what I before
condemned as indolence and want of energy—so much for experience. The
greatest annoyance are the musquito bites; it is almost impossible not to
scratch them, which causes them to inflame, and they are then often very
difficult to cure: they are to me much worse than the heat itself; my
irritable constitution cannot endure them.
The elephantiasis is very common amongst the natives, it causes one or
both legs to swell to an enormous size, making the leg at the ankle as
large as it is above the knee; there are some deplorable objects of this
sort, with legs like those of the elephant—whence the name. Leprosy is
very common; we see lepers continually. The insects are of monstrous
growth, such spiders! and the small-lizards are numerous on the walls of
the rooms, darting out from behind pictures, &c. Curtains are not used in
Calcutta, they would harbour musquitoes, scorpions, and lizards.
THE CHŬRŬK POOJA.
[Illustration: THE CHŬRŬK PŪJĀ
فاني پارکس]
The other day, hearing it was a Burra Din, (day of festival in honour
of the goddess Kālee, whose temple is about a mile and a half from
Calcutta,) I drove down in the evening to Kālee Ghaut, where, had not the
novelty of the scene excited my curiosity, disgust would have made me
sick. Thousands of people were on the road, dressed in all their gayest
attire, to do honour to the festival of the Chŭrŭk Pooja, the swinging
by hooks. Amongst the crowd, the most remarkable objects were several
Voiragee mendicants; their bodies were covered with ashes, their hair
clotted with mud and twisted round their heads; they were naked all but
a shred of cloth. One man had held up both arms over his head until
they had withered and were immoveable, the nails of the clenched fists
had penetrated through the back of the hands, and came out on the other
side like the claws of a bird. To fulfil some vow to Vishnoo this agony
is endured, not as a penance for sin, but as an act of extraordinary
merit. At first the pain must be great, but it ceases as the arms become
benumbed. A man of this description is reckoned remarkably holy, having
perfect dependence upon God for support, being unable, his arms having
become immoveable, to carry food to his mouth or assist himself. Two or
three other mendicants who were present had only one withered arm raised
above their heads. Some Hindoos of low caste, either for their sins or
for money, had cut three or four gashes in the muscular part of the arm,
and through these gashes they kept running a sword, dancing violently all
the time to hideous music; others ran bamboos as thick as three fingers
through the holes in the arm, dancing in the same manner. One man passed
a spit up and down through the holes, another a dagger, and a third had a
skewer through his tongue.
A little further on were three swinging posts erected in this fashion; a
post some thirty feet in height was crossed at the top by a horizontal
bamboo, from one end of which a man was swinging, suspended by a rope,
from the other end another rope was fastened to a horizontal pole below,
which was turned by men running round like horses in a mill. The man
swung in a circle of perhaps thirty feet diameter, supported by four iron
hooks, two through the flesh of his back, and two in that of his chest,
by which, and a small bit of cloth across the breast, he was entirely
supported: he carried a bag in one hand, from which he threw sweetmeats
and flowers to the populace below. Some men swing with four hooks in
the back and four on the chest without any cloth, eight hooks being
considered sufficient to support the body. The man I saw swinging looked
very wild, from the quantity of opium and bengh he had taken to deaden
the sense of pain. Bengh is an intoxicating liquor, which is prepared
with the leaves of the Gánja plant (Cannabis Indica).
Hindoos of the lower castes are very fond of this amusement, accidental
deaths occasioned by it are reckoned about three per cent. Sometimes four
men swing together for half an hour; some in penance for their own sins;
some for those of others, richer men, who reward their deputies and thus
do penance by proxy.
Khraunchies full of nāch girls were there in all their gaily-coloured
dresses and ornaments, as well as a number of respectable men of good
caste.
I was much disgusted, but greatly interested.
Sentries from the Calcutta militia were stationed round the swings to
keep off the crowd.
The men on the mound at the foot of the second swing run round with the
bamboo frame which is connected with the pole, at the summit of which
are the cross bamboos. As they proceed, the four men above swing merrily
on their hooks, scattering flowers and sweetmeats on the people, and
repeating verses and portions of the shāstrs.