Malabar Hill, and Domestic Life of the English in Bombay.
My first stay in Bombay was a comparatively short one, and was spent
partly with friends at Colabah and partly in tents on the great green in
front of Fort George.
My stepfather being connected with the engineer or public works
department at the military station of Poonah, my life for a year or two
was passed at that strange city. Upon the occasion of my marriage,
however, I returned to Bombay for a settled residence, from which time I
began my real experience of life in India.
We established ourselves at Malabar Hill, in a house completely isolated
from the rest of the world, where my husband and I took up the study of
the Sanskrit and Hindostanee languages. Malabar Hill is a rocky
promontory on the south of the island of Bombay, and covered with
beautiful houses, many of which are almost palaces. At its highest
point, detached and alone, stands a lofty tower, the largest "dohkma,"
or "tower of silence," of the Parsees. Here the followers of Zoroaster
deposit their dead. It is rendered not the less sombre by the birds of
prey that hover around it in great numbers.
There are two other and smaller towers of silence on the island, all
erected in the most isolated positions. No one is ever allowed to
approach them save the Fire-priests and those who carry their dead.
These strange towers or tombs are mysterious, grand, and barbaric in
their very forms--at their base screened by huge branching trees from
all human observation, open only to the blue sky, the free air, and the
gloomy birds of prey hovering always near.
On the other side of this much-dreaded spot, and not far from a forest
of palms which descends in graceful undulations to the very base of the
hill, stood a solitary house, called by every one "Morgan's Folly." For
full ten years it had found no occupant. Its owner and builder, having
returned to England with broken fortunes and failing health, had
entrusted the renting of it to a Parsee agent. By a happy accident this
lonely house was discovered by my husband, who had it at once repaired,
furnished, and fitted up for our use, and here we took up our abode
after a few weeks' residence at Parel.
I wish I could do justice to this singular abode, on the portals of
which the monosyllable "_Whim_" might fully be inscribed. It was the
caprice of a rich English cotton-merchant, whose love for the feathered
tribe amounted to an absorbing passion. The house was therefore designed
and built at great cost to serve the double purpose of human and bird
habitation. Foolish, capricious, extravagant, and incorrigible as he was
called by every one, I for my part conceived an affection for this
strange Englishman who built this fanciful place in which were passed
the first few years of my married life.
Two fine roads led to the "Aviary," as we named the house, one of which
was cut into the hillside and descended to the base of the hill, whence
at low tide you might step from rock to rock away out into the bay. The
other was connected with a beautiful road which winds along Malabar
Hill, affording a favorite carriage-drive for the residents of the
island.
As for the house, it was the most curious bit of architecture one had
ever seen--so fanciful, it seemed more like something that belonged
rather to the mysterious land we visit in our dreams than to an actual
house made of solid stone and wood standing fast, bound to the hard,
dull, practical earth.
The building consisted only of two stories, of great length, and a high
chamber, called the "Teak Tower," which rose above the east corner of
the house and commanded the most extensive and beautiful views to be
found anywhere on the island. The upper story was the part designed for
human habitation. The wood of which it was built was a fine-grained teak
and very durable. The balcony, running all around the upper story, was
elaborately carved. The lower part was chiefly of stone pillars,
enclosing a spacious ground-floor united by screens of fine open wire
wrought in Oriental patterns of the Persian rose and the Buddhistic
lily. The pillars rested firmly on broad stone foundations, and the open
wire walls let in all the wind, rain, and sunshine that the feathered
inhabitants for whom the enclosure was intended could possibly desire.
But this was not all: on the ground-floor of the hall flourished some
beautiful fruit-bearing trees. Right under our bedroom chamber stood
that most exquisite of Indian trees, "the gold-mohur acacia," with its
rich clusters of golden flowers; the slender, graceful pâpiya, with its
heavy drooping leaves and round fruit of a rich yellow when ripe, so
much sought after by birds. One gigantic baobâb, which had stood here,
no doubt, for centuries, for whose growth and preservation the builder
had made ample provision by leaving a well or circular opening through
the lower and upper stories and in the roof, gave the house the singular
appearance of growing around a great tree. Forcing themselves through
this opening to the sky, the branches of the baobâb shot straight up on
one side and overshadowed the tower chamber, covering it, after each
rainy season, with masses of fragrant blossoms and fine fruit. It was
very evident that in the course of time there would be, possibly, a
prolonged but mighty struggle between the house and the tree, which
should go first, and it was not hard to tell, for already the tree had
found its way to the open sky, and its branches were seen pushing here
and there and penetrating the woodwork of the chambers adjoining. There
were one or two more trees that deserve mention. These were a beautiful
Chinese pine and a heart-shaped peepul. The ground-floor of this hall
was covered with weeds and a perfect jungle of brushwood. The gardener
told me that it abounded in all kinds of reptiles, but I never saw any
signs of them until some large snakes were called out one morning by a
party of samp-wallahs, or snake-charmers. The fruit trees had long
ceased to bear, and were gradually crowding out and killing each other.
All the more rare and beautiful birds with which Mr. Morgan had stocked
this place had died or taken flight to homes less confined; only a few
still remained. Among them were the sooruk, or scarlet breast, an
exquisite singer; the mâina, the Java sparrow, the bulbul or Indian
nightingale, and the zeenah, a little quarrelsome brown and red-spotted
bird,--all hardy birds. They lingered here, partly from association and
partly because of the grain still thrown in and around the "Aviary"
morning and evening by the pious Hindoo employed by the Parsee agent to
look after the garden.
The tower chamber was our favorite sitting-room because of its splendid
views and being removed from the noise and vicinity of our servants. It
was simply furnished--a table, a few chairs, mostly of cane, a couple of
sofas and a Persian carpet, with gauze nettings to every door and
window to keep out our worst foes, the gnats, flies, and mosquitoes. The
rest of the house was furnished with the same severe simplicity; there
were no curtains, no blinds, no carpets; the floors as well as the walls
were painted in subdued half-tints, which gave them the air of being
very handsomely fitted up.
In this place I began my first attempt at housekeeping in the East, and
I can truly say, without the least exaggeration, that for months the
house kept itself and my numerous servants kept me. To begin with, there
were too many servants for so quiet and unpretending a household, but I
soon found it would be still more difficult to do with fewer:
"_dustoor_," custom, was flung into my face morning, noon, and night. I
implored my husband to send half of them away, but if he sent one off,
either the whole gang disappeared like a flash or else the work of the
banished servant was scrupulously avoided by every one in the
establishment. There was, in short, a servant for every distinct thing
to be done in the house. There was a _khansamah_, or native butler, a
high-caste Hindoo, who was supposed to keep all the servants in order,
but who invariably incited a revolution in the camp if I wished anything
to be done my way and not his. Then there was a cook, a _kling_ (a name
for a certain race natives of Madras), who got drunk whenever we
happened to have friends to dinner; there was a cook's mate, who was
inclined to be musical just as we were going to sleep; there was a
_buttee-wallah_, or lamplighter, a stripling, some near relation of the
butler's, whose friends and relatives were always dying, and who asked
permission three times in the course of a few months to be allowed to go
and bury his mother. When I very gently, because of his flowing tears
and doleful expression of face, reminded him that he had already buried
or burned her twice, he burst into a passionate sob and said, "Oh! that
one was my aunt's mother, and the last one my father's mother, but this
is my own, own mother." Of course I had to let him go off for two or
three days, and the butler too, who was also a mourner. Then there were
besides these an _ayah_, or lady's-maid; a _dhoby_, or washerman, who
came to the house once a week for the clothes, and stayed away sometimes
for three weeks, owing to that chronic epidemic, death, in the family; a
_bheestie_, who filled the tubs in the bathroom with water, and did
nothing else; a _jarroo-wallah_, who only came each morning and swept
the house and grounds, and then disappeared till the next time; a
coachman, a groom, a _pundit_, or professor of Oriental languages; and
lastly, a tailor, whose name was Tom. He, Tom, was a Portuguese
Christian, and attended to the mending of the household linen and the
making of our clothes. He was the least manageable of the whole lot. He
would not answer to the name "boy," a generic name for servants in India
and a corruption of the Hindostanee word _bhai_, brother, but insisted
on being called "Tom." This put me very often into an awkward position,
as this was the familiar name by which I had learned to call my husband,
not knowing that there was another "Tom" attached to him from his
bachelor establishment. Once or twice, forgetting this fact, I happened
to call "Tom! Tom!" after my husband, who was hurrying off to town, when
who should pop into my chamber but the grinning tailor-boy, balancing a
pair of huge scissors on his right ear and with a number of needles full
of long threads stuck into his woolly head, which served him as a
needle-case? There was nothing left me but to change my husband's name.
But this was by no means the beginning and end of my troubles of
housekeeping in Bombay. I happened to awake very early one Sunday
morning. It was a lovely sunrise: the first blush of dawn was mounting
the horizon; the trees in the garden were unfolding their leaves; birds
of all colors were perched upon their branches opening their "ruby eyes"
on a newly-born day. But as I stood there, entranced with the beauty of
a tropical sunrise, my eyes fell on the figure of Tom the tailor going
off to early mass attired in my husband's best dress-coat and an
embroidered vest which had been a chief object of my girlish admiration.
In addition to these he sported pointed shoes, worked stockings--one of
the finest pair in my possession--and a frill six inches deep projecting
from his shirt-front, with a huge cocked hat, over which he held one of
my smallest parasols to protect him from the mildest of morning suns,
which had only just mounted the hillside. When I remonstrated with him
on his return from chapel, he burst into a passion of tears and sobs and
flooded me with such replies as these: "Your godship, you are my father
and mother; an unkind, unjust word from your divine voice will break
your poor slave's heart and consign him in the prime of his youth to a
lonely and desolate grave," etc. I absolutely began to feel that he was
the injured party, and that I was anything but a kind, generous mistress
and a Christian. It ended in my presenting him with the clothes he had
worn, but nevertheless he went about the house for days in a state of
sorrowful dejection at my unkindness, which he persisted in saying had
caused his heart to bleed to death.
Not long after this in a rash moment we resolved to give a dinner-party
to some of our friends in Bombay, and to invite the rich East Indian
widow, Mrs. C----, who had shown us many kindnesses. Never in my life
did I pass through a more perplexing and fiery ordeal.
The viands were all ordered and sent from town, and had arrived in good
season. But no sooner had they been deposited in the kitchen than the
butler reported, in his quiet and unconcerned manner, that the cook had
gone off to town to get help, and would probably not return in time to
prepare the dinner. The butler and the lamplighter were Hindoos, and
could not touch beef or ham, or, in fact, any kind of flesh. The butler
had no objection to putting these articles on the table when cooked, but
as for cooking them, he would lose caste. There was nothing left to be
done but for Tom the tailor-boy and I--who, being Christians, had no
such scruples--to set about and cook the dinner.
About four o'clock everything was in a fair way toward being cooked, the
capons, ham, soup, and vegetables were all in their places on the fire,
when suddenly the cook returned, looking very strange; I thought he was
only tired and sleepy. He insisted on taking possession of the kitchen,
declaring that it almost broke his heart to see me spoiling my nice
dress and ruining my complexion over the fire. "What am I good for,"
said he, striking an attitude and looking queerer than ever, "but to
cook you a grand dinner and be your slave for ever?" Thus assured, I
quitted the kitchen with all the dinner cooking away at great speed, and
betook myself to making various other preparations. It was almost the
dinner-hour before I was fairly through with the glasses and dessert and
a thousand and one of the many requirements of a European dinner-party.
No sooner had I put the last touches to my toilette than my husband
returned with two unexpected guests, which called my attention at once,
so that I had no opportunity to revisit the kitchen to see that all was
as it should be.
The last of the guests had no sooner arrived than the butler threw open
the dining-room door and announced in a solemn tone, "Kannah teyar hai
Sahibloke" ("Dinner waits, ladies and gentlemen").
We marched gayly in, eager, happy, and very hungry. But, alas! no sooner
was the soup-tureen uncovered than I divined from my husband's
expression that something was wrong. The soup was sent away with some
playful apology, but when dish after dish was set on the table,
uncovered, and removed without my husband's even making a pretence of
offering the guests anything to eat, it was too much for me.
At this juncture kind-hearted Mrs. C---- came to my rescue by saying,
"Let us all go off to the kitchen and find out what is the matter with
the cook," and coming to my side, gave me an opportunity to recover
myself, which I did under her gentle smile and oft-repeated adage, "My
dear, accidents will happen in the best regulated families."
The gentlemen returned from their survey of the kitchen and reported
that the cook was "drunk and sound asleep in the middle of the floor,"
and that the remainder of the dinner was burnt to cinders, but still in
the pots on the range. If it had not been for the kind-hearted Mrs.
C----, I do not know what we should have done. She insisted on our all
driving out to her house and taking tea with her.
I must not omit to mention another incident which is characteristic of
life in India. My husband was in the commissariat department of the
army, and had a great deal to do with native dealers. The Parsees,
however, because of their honesty, had the monopoly of the contracts for
supplying the British troops in Bombay. One morning a number of
_Borahs_[5] were ushered into the "Aviary," and laid before me on the
table what seemed to be a tray filled with sugar candy, raisins, and
almonds. Not understanding the meaning of this gift, and not having
quite outgrown my love for sweets, I took up a handful of the good
things, when, to my surprise, I found lying below the candy a number of
gold coins called "mohurs." I hastened to inform my husband of the
magnificent present waiting for him, but he no sooner heard of it then
he turned the Borahs out, tray and all. It was simply an attempt to
obtain contracts by bribery. The Borahs seemed in no way discomfited;
they bowed most politely on my husband's prompt dismissal, and departed
as if it were with them no unusual occurrence to be turned out of doors.
Such are some few of the most prominent features of housekeeping and
life in India.
The native servants have some good points, however. They will rarely
quit your service, even to better their fortunes, unless driven away.
They contrive, too, to have their own way without ever being
disrespectful to you. They bow or salââm at all times, move so softly
about the house with bare feet that you hardly ever know that they are
there, and, on the whole, they attend pretty well to their own peculiar
province in the household; but as for helping in what is _not their
province_, it is not to be expected.
They are never away a day except for sudden deaths, which take place in
the various branches of their friends or relatives once a week, on an
average. They are always clean, arrayed in their long flowing white
robes and handsome turbans, and they never address you without some
flattering or grandiloquent phrase, which helps not a little to smooth
over your wounded pride.
Our pundit,[6] Govind, was not a servant, but a high-bred gentleman. He
came to the "Aviary" morning and evening to give us lessons in
Hindostanee and Sanskrit. He was a learned high-caste Brahman and a
remarkably interesting specimen of a Hindoo gentleman.
Almost directly to the right of the "Aviary" was the government
summer-house already mentioned; just opposite, situated on the summit of
a steep acclivity overlooking the sea, was a grand stone house, the home
of our Parsee friend and commissariat contractor. On the west, embowered
in a thick grove of mango and tamarind trees, was the prettiest of
little Hindoo villages, the village of Walkeshwar, sacred to the god of
the strand or beach.
We spent a day here on a certain festal occasion accompanied by Govind,
our pundit. We lunched under the porch of the Hindoo temple by
permission obtained through our pundit. Perfectly nude dusky children
were clambering about the stones watching us with eager curiosity. Our
visit here was to witness the feast of Rama, the hero of one of the
Hindoo epic poems, Ramayána, and his wife, Seeta, which did not begin
until the afternoon. Hindoo women, black-eyed and singularly graceful in
their movements, adorned with gayly-colored robes and most
antique-looking bracelets and armlets, went to and from the pool, still
called "Rama Talai," or Rama's Pool, bearing water in jars piled in
tiers on their heads, others bathing and frolicking in the pool. There
were at the same time some dozen Brahman priests at prayer, seemingly
abstracted from the scenes around them, going through with all kinds of
motions with their bodies while their lips moved incessantly, but
inaudibly, in prayer and praise. Our pundit told us that this was the
traditional spot where the hero Rama rested when on his way to Lanka
(Ceylon) to recover from the tyrant Rawana his beautiful wife, Seeta.
The Rama Talai stands in a group of small temples--some of which are
very pretty--surrounded by gardens. About two in the afternoon the
officiating priests began to arrive, followed by thousands of Hindoos.
The doors of the temple were thrown open to all comers. The priests
placed themselves at the foot of the shrines, on each of which were
several idols--Siva, the chief god, above, and Rama and Seeta below. The
people poured forth their offerings to the priests. Those who could not
get into the temples pressed around the sacred pool, throwing themselves
into its holy waters and coming out free from all impurities. A great
many young women with peculiarly interesting faces were kneeling outside
of the temples and praying, with their eyes closed and their hands
folded, for some especial blessing. It was an interesting sight, but for
the fakeers and gossains, who make a disgusting spectacle of themselves,
and, strange to say, are encouraged by the pure, mild, and modest
Brahman priests to do so. As it was, we returned home shocked with the
nudity and filth of these sacred beggars, but very much impressed with
the perfectly pure and religious nature of the Hindoos, who have very
beautiful forms and faces, and even those that are not absolutely
beautiful have so much grace and gentleness about them that they attract
the eye and remain impressed on the memory with something of the charm
of a beautiful painting.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] The Borahs are natives of Guzerat, converted to Islamism about five
and a half centuries ago. They are remarkable for their extraordinary
intelligence in trade. The name "Borah" signifies merchant in the
Guzerati dialect. These Borahs are a distinct sect, followers of one
Moolah Allih, who is buried in the old city of Cambay. They pay
reverence to Mohammed Hussain, called in the records of the Crusaders
"The Prince of the Assassins" and also "the Old Man of the Mountains."
They transmit a fifth of their gains to the Saiyads of Medinah, and pay
eleemosynary contributions to the chief of their learned men, who
distribute alms among the poor. (See _Asiatic Researches_, paper by H.
T. Colebrook.)
[6] A professor of Sanskrit or other branches of Indian literature.