“Another custom is their sitting always on the ground with their
knees up to their chins, which I know not how to account
for.”—_Daniel Johnson_.
[Picture: The Malee] I HAVE been watching Thomas Otway, gardener. His
coat hangs on a tree hard by, and he, standing in his shirt sleeves, is
slaughtering regiments of weeds with a long hoe. When they are all
uprooted and prostrate, he changes his weapon for a fork, with which he
tosses them about and shakes them free of soil and gathers them into
heaps. Then he brings a wheel-barrow, and, piling them into it until it
can hold no more, goes off at a trot. I am told his only fault is that
he is _slow_.
I have also stood watching Peelajee. He, too, is a gardener, called by
his own people a _Malee_, and by us, familiarly, a _Molly_. He sits in
an attitude not easy to describe, but familiar to all who have resided in
the otiose East. You will get at it by sitting on your own heels and
putting your knees into your armpits. In this position Peelajee can
spend the day with much comfort, which is a wonderful provision of
nature. At the present moment he also is engaged in the operation of
weeding. In his right hand is a small species of sickle called a
_koorpee_, with which he investigates the root of each weed as a snipe
feels in the mud for worms; then with his left hand he pulls it out,
gently shakes the earth off it, and contributes it to a small heap beside
him. When he has cleared a little space round him, he moves on like a
toad, without lifting himself. He enlivens his toil by exchanging
remarks upon the weather as affecting the price of grain, the infirmity
of my temper and other topics of personal interest, with an assistant,
whom he persuaded me to engage by the day, pleading the laborious nature
of this work of weeding. When two or three square yards have been
cleared, they both go away, and return in half an hour with a very small
basket, which one holds while the other fills it with the weeds. Then
the assistant balances it on his head, and sets out at one mile an hour
for the garden gate, where he empties it on the roadside. Then he
returns at the same rate, with the empty basket on his head, to Peelajee,
who is occupied sitting waiting for him.
It is clear that there may be two ways of doing the same thing. I have
no doubt there is much to be said for both, but, upon the whole, the
advantage seems to lie with the _Malee_. Otway does as much work in a
day as Peelajee does in a week. But why should a day be better than a
week? If you turn the thing round, and look at the other side of it, you
will find that Otway costs three shillings a day and Peelajee two rupees
a week. So, if you are in a hurry, you can employ half a dozen
Peelajees, and feel that you are making six families in the world happy
instead of only one. And I am sure the calm and peaceful air of
Peelajee, as he moves about the garden, must be good for the soul and
promote longevity. I hate bustle, and I can vouch for Peelajee that he
never bustles. However, there is no need of odious comparisons. There
is a time for everything under the sun, and a place. Here, in India, we
have need of Peelajee. He is a necessary part of the machinery by which
our exile life is made to be the graceful thing it often is. I pass by
bungalow after bungalow, each in its own little paradise, and look upon
the green lawn successfully defying an unkind climate, the islands of
mingled foliage in profuse, confused beauty, the gay flower beds, the
clean gravel paths with their trim borders, the grotto in a shady corner,
where fern and moss mingle, all dripping as if from recent showers and
make you feel cool in spite of all thermometers, and I say to myself,
“Without the _Malee_ all this would not be.” Neither with the _Malee_
alone would this be, but something very different. I admit that. But is
not this just one secret of the beneficent influence he has on us? Your
“Scotch” gardener is altogether too good. He obliterates you—reduces you
to a spectator. But keeping a _Malee_ draws you out, for he compels you
to look after him, and if you are to look after him, you must know
something about his art, and if you do not know, you must learn. So we
Anglo-Indians are gardeners almost to a man, and spend many pure, happy
hours with the pruning shears and the budding knife, and this we owe to
the _Malee_. When I say you must look after him, I do not disparage his
skill; he is neat handed and knows many things; but his taste is
elementary. He has an eye for symmetry, and can take delight in squares
and circles and parallel lines; but the more subtle beauties of
unsymmetrical figures and curves which seem to obey no law are hid from
him. He loves bright tints especially red and yellow, with a boy’s love
for sugar; he cannot have too much of them; but he has no organ for
perceiving harmony in colour, and so the want of it does not pain him.
The chief avenue, however, by which the delights of a gardener’s life
reach him is the sense of smell. He revels in sweet odours; but here,
too, he seeks for strength rather than what we call delicacy. In short,
the enjoyment which he finds in the tones of his native _tom-tom_ may be
taken as typical of all his pleasures. I find however, that Peelajee
understands the principles of toleration, and, recognising that he caters
for my pleasure rather than his own, is quite willing to abandon his
favourite yellow marigold and luscious jasmine for the _pooteena_ and the
_beebeena_ and the _fullax_. But perhaps you do not know these flowers
by their Indian names. We call them _petunia_, _verbena_, and _phlox_.
This is, doubtless, another indication of our Aryan brotherhood.
Peelajee is industrious after the Oriental method—that is to say, he is
always doing something, but is economical of energy rather than time. If
there are more ways than one of doing a thing, he has an unerring
instinct which guides him to choose the one that costs least trouble. He
is a fatalist in philosophy, and this helps him too. For example, when
he transplants a rose bush, he saves himself the trouble of digging very
deep by breaking the root, for if the plant is to live it will live, and
if it is to die it will die. Some plants live, he remarks, and some
plants die. The second half of this aphorism is only too true. In fact,
many of my best plants not only die, but suddenly and entirely disappear.
If I question Peelajee, he denies that I ever had them, and treats me as
a dreamer of dreams. I would not be uncharitable, but a little
suspicion, like a mouse, lurks in the crevices of my mind that Peelajee
surreptitiously carries on a small business as a seedsman and nursery
gardener, and I know that in his simple mind he is so identified with his
master that _meum_ and _tuum_ blend, as it were, into one. I am
restrained from probing into the matter by a sensitiveness about certain
other mysteries which may be bound up with this, and about which I have
always suppressed my curiosity. For example, where do the beautiful
flowers which decorate my table grow? Not altogether in my garden. So
much I know: more than that I think it prudent not to know. For this
reason, as I said, I forbear to make close scrutiny into what may be
called the undercurrent of Peelajee’s operations, but I notice that he
always has in hand large beds of cuttings from my best roses and crotons,
and these flourish up to a certain point, after which I lose all trace of
them. He says that an insidious caterpillar attacks their roots, so that
they all grow black and wither away suddenly. I fall upon him and tell
him that he is to blame. He protests that he cannot control underground
caterpillars. He knows that I suspect, and I suspect that he knows, but
a veil of dissimulation, however transparent, averts a crisis, so we
fence for a time till he understands clearly that, when he propagates my
plants, he must reserve a decent number for me.
Griffins and travelling M.P.s are liable to suppose that the _Malee_ is a
gardener, and _ergo_ that you keep him to attend to your garden. This is
an error. He is a gardener, of course, but the primary use of him is to
produce flowers for your table, and you need him most when you have no
garden. A high-class _Malee_ of good family and connections is quite
independent of a garden. It seems necessary, however, that your
neighbours should have gardens.
The highest branch of the _Malee’s_ art is the making of nosegays, from
the little “buttonhole,” which is equivalent to a cough on occasions when
_baksheesh_ seems possible, to the great valedictory or Christmas
bouquet. The manner of making these is as follows. First you gather
your flowers, cutting the stalks as short as possible, and tie each one
firmly to an artificial stalk of thin bamboo. Then you select some large
and striking flower for a centre, and range the rest round it in rings of
beautiful colours. If your bull’s eye is a sunflower, then you may gird
it with a broad belt of red roses. Yellow marigolds may follow, then
another ring of red roses, then lilac bougainvillea, then something blue,
after which you may have a circle of white jasmine, and so on. Finally,
you fringe the whole with green leaves, bind it together with pack
thread, and tie it to the end of a short stick. If the odour of rose,
jasmine, chumpa, oleander, etc., is not sufficient, you can mix a good
quantity of mignonette with the leaves on the outside, but, in any case,
it is best to sprinkle the whole profusely with rose water. This will
make a bouquet fit to present to a Commissioner.
[Picture: The highest style of art]