[Picture: The body-guard] OUR _Chupprassees_ are the outward expression
of our authority, and the metre-gauge of our importance. By them the
untutored mind of the poor Indian is enabled to estimate the amount of
reverence due to each of us. This is the first purpose for which we are
provided with Chupprassees. The second is that they may deliver our
commands, post our letters, and escort the coming generation of
Government servants in their little perambulators. As the number
required for the first purpose usually far exceeds the number required
for the second, there is danger of Satan finding mischief for their idle
hands to do, and it becomes our duty to ward off this danger by occupying
their hands with something which is not mischief. This we do faithfully,
and the _Chupprassee_ always reminds me of those tools we see advertised,
which combine hammer, pincers, turnscrew, chisel, foot-rule, hatchet,
file, toothpick, and life preserver. Mrs. Smart bewailed the bygone day
when every servant in her house was a Government _Chupprassee_ except the
_khansamah_ and a Portuguese _ayah_. I did not live in that day, but in
my own I have seen the _Chupprassee_ discharge many functions. He is an
expert _shikaree_, sometimes a good tailor or barber, not a bad cook at a
pinch, a handy table boy, and, above all an unequalled child’s servant.
There can be little doubt, it the truth were told, that Little Henry’s
bearer was a _Chupprassee_. He also milks the cow, waters the garden,
catches butterflies, skins birds, blows eggs, and runs after tennis
balls. If you ask himself what his duties are, he will reply promptly
that it is his duty to wear the sircar’s belt and to “be present.” And
the camel is not more wonderfully fitted for the desert than is Luxumon
for the discharge of these solemn responsibilities. He is like a
carriage clock, able to sleep in any conceivable position; and such is
his mental constitution that, when not sleeping, he is able to “be
present” hour after hour without feeling any desire for change of
occupation. _Ennui_ never troubles him, time never hangs heavy on his
hands; he sits as patiently as a cow and chews the cud of _pan suparee_,
and he bespatters the walls with a sanguinary pigment produced by the
mastication of the same. He needs no food, but he goes out to drink
water thirty-five times a day, and, when he returns refreshed, a certain
acrid odour penetrates every crevice of the house, almost dislodging the
rats and exterminating the lesser vermin. To liken it to the smell of
tobacco would give civilized mankind a claim against me for defamation of
character.
[Picture: An unequalled child’s servant]
I will sketch my ideal of a model _Chupprassee_. He is a follower of the
Prophet, for your Gentoo has too many superstitions and scruples to be
generally useful. He parts his short black beard in the middle and
brushes it up his cheek on either side, the ends of his moustache are
trimly curled, he wears his turban a little on one side, carries himself
like a soldier, and is always scrupulously clean. He comes into your
presence with a salutation which expresses his own dignity, while it
respects yours. He wishes to know whether the protector of the poor has
any commands for his slave. When you intimate your wishes he responds
with a formula which is the same for all occasions—“Your Lordship’s
commands shall be executed.” And they are executed. If he knows of
difficulties or impossibilities, he keeps them to himself. Alas! this is
an ideal, how antipodal sometimes to the real! I am thinking of the
gigantic Sheikh Mahomed, with his terrible beard and womanly voice, who
would convey my commands to a menial of lower degree and return in five
minutes to detail the objections which that person had raised. Another
type of Mahomedan _Chupprassee_, whom we see is to abhor, expresses his
opinion of himself by letting half a yard of rag hang down from his
turban behind. He calls himself a _Syed_ and, perhaps, on account of the
sanctity implied in this, forbears to wash himself or his clothes. This
man is clever, officious, familiar, servile, and very fond of the
position of umbrella-bearer in ordinary to your person: therefore,
transfer him to the personal staff of some native dignitary, where he
will be appreciated. If my model does not suit you, there are many types
to choose from. We have the lofty and sonorous _Purdaisee_, the
_Rajpoot_, son of kings, the _Bhundaree_, or hereditary climber of palm
trees, the Israelite, the low caste, useful, intelligent _Mahar_, and
many more. Even the Brahmin in this iron age becomes a _Chupprassee_.
But three-fourths of all our belted satellites come from one little
district south of Bombay, known to our fathers as Rutnagherry,
re-christened Ratnagiri by the Hon. W. W. Hunter, C.I.E., A.B.C., D.E.F.,
etc. Every country has its own special products; the Malabar Coast sends
us cocoanuts and pepper; artichokes come from Jerusalem; ducks, lace,
cooks, and fiddlers from Goa. So Rutnagherry produces pineapples and
Mahrattas, and the Mahrattas do not eat the pineapples. Till quite
recently they employed themselves exterminating each other, burning each
other’s villages and crops, and inventing new ways of torturing old men
to make them confess where their money was buried. We have stopped these
practices without stopping the religious arrangements for keeping up the
supply of the race; so the Mahratta marries, as in duty bound, and
multiplies, and then casts about for some way of maintaining his growing
family; and our _Chupprassee_ system, looked at politically, is a grand
escape pipe. Pandurang Huree gives the Mahrattas the palm, as liars,
over all the other races of India. He may be right, but where excellence
is so universal, comparison becomes doubly odious. Some Mahrattas put
_rao_ after their names and treat themselves with much respect,
especially if they can grow a little island of whisker on each cheek and
run the moustache into it. These men differ from common Mahrattas in the
same way as Mr. Wilberforce Jones, or Mr. Palmerston Smith, differs from
the ordinary run of Joneses and Smiths.
How uniformly does ambition rule us all! The young _rao_, fired by the
hope of wearing a belt, makes a bold resolve to leave his father and
mother, his wife and children, his brothers, their wives and children,
his uncles, aunts, and cousins, and the little hut in which they have all
lived so happily since he was a little, naked, crawling thing, dressed in
a silver rupee. He looks for the last time on the buffalo and the lame
pariah dog, ties up his cooking pots and a change of raiment in a red
handkerchief, and starts on foot, amid the howling of females, for the
great town, a hundred miles away, where the brother-in-law of his
cousin’s wife’s uncle is on the personal staff of the Collector. He
fears that the water of the place may not suit his constitution, but he
risks that and other unknown perils. Arriving at his destination, he
works his interest by quartering himself on his influential connection,
who, finding that an extra seer of rice has to be boiled for every meal,
leaves no stone unturned to find employment for him. First a written
petition is drawn up by the local petition writer, in the following terms
“Most Honoured and Respected Sir,—Although I am conscious that my present
step will apparently be deemed an unjustifiable and unpardonable one,
tantamounting to a preposterous hardihood in presuming to trespass
(amidst your multifarious vocations) on your valuable time, yet placing
implicit reliance on your noble nature and magnanimity of heart, I
venture to do so, and ardently trust you will pardon me. Learning that a
vacancy of a sepoy has occurred under your kind auspices, I beg most
respectfully to tender my services for the same, and crave your
permission to invite your benign attention to the episodes of my
chequered life, though of a doleful and sombre nature, and
_concatenation_ of melancholy events that have made their visitations.
My eldest brother died one year since, leaving an heritage of a relict
and two female issues to bemoan and lament his premature and irreparable
loss. And two months since my revered parent paid debt of nature, at 2
p.m. on 15th February, A.D. 18–, thus leaving the entire burden of 13
(thirteen) souls on my individual shoulders, which, in my present and
forlorn circumferences, I am unable to cope with. I, therefore, throw
myself on your benevolent clemency and humane consideration, and implore
you to confer the vacancy in question which will enable me to meet the
daily unavoidable returning requisites of domestic life in all their
varied ramifications, and relieve a famishing family from the jaws of
penury and privation. By thus delivering me from an impending
impossibility most prejudicial to my purse resources, you will confer on
your humble servant a boon which will be always vivid on the tablet of my
breast, never to be effaced until the period that I am sojurning on the
stage of this sublunary world’s theatre.” The petition goes on to
explain that all the unhappy petitioner’s efforts to earn an honest
livelihood by the perspiration of his brow have been frustrated owing to
the sins committed by his soul in a former birth, and ends with religious
reflections and prayers. While this is presented to the Collector, the
candidate stands under a tree at some distance and rehearses, with
palpitating heart, the _salaam_ he will make if admitted to the august
presence. Life and death seem to hang on the impression which may be
produced by that _salaam_. But the cousin’s wife’s uncle’s
brother-in-law sets other machinery in motion. He humbles himself and
makes up an old quarrel with the Naik; he flatters the butler till that
great man is pleased and promises his influence; and he wins the
Sheristedar’s vote by telling him earnestly that all the district knows
he is virtually the Collector and whatever he recommends is done. Nor is
the _ayah_ forgotten, for the _ayah_ has access to the _madam_, and by
that route certain shameful matters affecting a rival candidate will
reach the _saheb_. Now, supposing that the sins of a former birth fail
to checkmate all these machinations, and that the new arrival actually
finds himself swimming in the unfathomed bliss of a belt with a brass
plate, and a princely income of seven Queen’s rupees every month, who
could foretell that almost before a year has passed he will again be
floundering in the mire of disappointed ambition? Yet so it is. He
hears of another _Chupprassee_ with only eleven months’ service against
his twelve, who has been promoted to eight rupees, and immediately the
canker of discontent eats into his heart. Later on he finds that the cup
of his happiness will never be quite full until he gets ten rupees a
month, and when he has reached that giddy height, he will see dawning on
his horizon the strange and beautiful hope that he may be a Naik. It is
a desperate ambition—
“He who ascends to mountain tops shall find
The highest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.”
Subordinate _Chupprassees_ will slight his authority, his fellow Naiks
will disparage him, disappointed rivals will send in anonymous petitions
accusing him of all manner of villanies of which he is not guilty, and,
worse still, revealing the little briberies and oppressions of which he
is not innocent. But who of us learns wisdom in these matters? The Naik
soon comes to feel that if justice were done to merit, he would be a
Havildar. After he has attained that proud distinction, he retires to
“husband out life’s taper at its close” in the same old hut, amidst the
same conglomerate of relations, but nephews and nieces, and grandchildren
have taken the place of uncles and aunts and parents. The buffalo and
the pariah dog are apparently the same. Then the whole range of official
machinery is put in motion to reward his long and faithful services, and
the Governor in Council grants him the maximum pension of four rupees a
month, subject to the approval of the Viceroy, and he spends his few
remaining days in gratitude to the Sircar. But one thing rankles in his
mind. Babajee, not nearly so good-looking a fellow as himself, rose to
be a Jemadar.
[Picture: Jemadar] Ambition has, however, another more golden career for
an enterprising and ingenious _Chupprassee_; for is he not the portal
through which the humble petitioner may have access to the Collector,
whose smile is prosperity and his frown destruction? And must not the
hinges of the portal be oiled that they may open smoothly? Therefore,
the inimitable Sir Ali Baba made a point of dismissing a _Chupprassee_
whenever he began to grow fat, and he was wise, but in applying the rule
you must have regard to the man’s rank. The belt of an ordinary peon may
range from twenty to thirty inches according to length of service,
promotion to a Naik’s position will add about three inches, a Havildar
will run to thirty-six or thirty-seven, and a Jemadar must have something
crabbed in his disposition if he does not attain to forty-two inches.
These are normal measurements,—they consistent with strict integrity as
understood in the East. By the blessing of good temper and an easy life
they may be slightly exceeded, but the itching palm brings on a kind of
dropsy easily recognisable to the practised eye. I have seen an unjust
Jemadar who might have walked with Sir John Falstaff.
Falstaff: My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
Pistol: Two yards, and more.