Pastor People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
Though the River of Time may wash away most of my India memories, there
is one thing that will remain as long as I live--my royal bath at Delhi,
and the time, the place, and the girl.
Bathing has not only been a fad with me, but an article of faith. At home
I take a cold plunge every morning, and on shipboard it is the thing I
look forward to with pleasure. A country is known by the baths it gives,
and in Constantinople, Moscow and Budapest I learned that every little
movement had a meaning all its own. The bath, that like Moses’ rod
swallowed up all others, was the one at Delhi, where cleanliness is not
always next to godliness.
India is a hot and sticky place for fleshy people, and like Falstaff
I was larding the lean earth as I walked along. After hours of dusty
driving and hard sight-seeing I asked my guide if I could have a bath,
and he said, “Yes, Durbar bath.” I had missed the royal pageant, but
hoped to get the splash, so we drove off the crowded street to a building
which invited us with shady walks and flowers. The native proprietor
ushered me into a darkened room and handed me a napkin. I had been in
India long enough to know what to do with that square of linen, so I used
it for a loincloth.
When I stepped into the bath I was “horrified” to find a beautiful
Mohammedan maiden standing there before me with nothing on plus a
bracelet. In agitation I rang. The master came, and I told him I did not
want that woman there with the bath. He seemed surprised, because she
was part of it, shrugged his shoulders, ordered her out, and beckoned
to two stalwart natives. They seized me, threw me down on the marble,
put a wooden pillow under my head, and then splashed, massaged, pounded,
twisted and kneaded me, worked my arms like a windmill, rolled me like a
log, used me as a punching bag, went through a whole course of gymnasium
exercises on me, then grinned and said, “Not finished.” I felt I was,
when back came the “sweet sixteen” smiling like Spring, and with less
covering than September Morn. I sprang up, but she grabbed a towel and
basin and laid me low, then soused me and began to put on the finishing
touches. In broken English she tried to tell me all her physical, mental
and moral charms, which I admitted because she was a woman, but I knew
her Koran didn’t square with my Old Testament, so thanking her, I fled,
like Joseph from Potiphar’s wife, to my room, where my guide “Kim” came
to the rescue, helped me to dress and rushed me to the train or I might
have been there yet.
The letter “I” in India stands for indecency and immorality in nearly
everything I saw from Calcutta to Bombay. Benares is washed by the
Ganges, the worshippers in the Ganges, and though every day is washday,
still the city and people are dirty. They need a new Hercules to turn
the Ganges through its Augean stables filled with holy fakirs, anointed
priests, pestiferous pilgrims, obscene carvings and sacred bulls.
I entered the Cow Temple, stable of sitting and standing bulls. The bull
is a beatified beast. Priests pet him, the godly natives garland his
horns and kiss his tail, virgin votaries bathe their hands, beautify
their faces and plaster their hair with the divine emanations which
Minnesota farmers use for fertilizer. At weddings, for good luck, to
keep evil spirits away, and purify the place, a cow is backed up to
the bride’s door to decorate the threshold with fresh dung--bossy’s
contribution to the joyous occasion. The “Bull Durham” of India is some
of the same, dried and mixed, with a little tobacco and paper. I have
often imagined that our yellow-fingered dudes imported it for cigaret
purposes--at any rate it smells like it. Like another ill-fated Gulliver
in the land of giants, I slipped around in the filth till I got a kodak
shot at his royal Bullship.
Benares is called the “Holy City” on the principle, I suppose, that
“in religion, what damned error, but some sober brow will bless it and
approve it with a text.” As well call ice hot, vinegar sweet, vice virtue
or hell heaven. One morning we pious pilgrims left the ladies, who were
not permitted to accompany us, and climbed to the secluded spot where
stands the Nepalese temple ornamented with gymnastic and obscene carvings
that would make the red pictures of Pompeii blush with shame. These
filthy figures of men and women, carved to please and pacify the gods,
are not mentioned in the guide-books or referred to above a whisper in
polite society. If this sex perversion marks the high tide of Buddhist
faith, I am ashamed, though I have photos of the carvings which I keep in
my strong-box packed in chloride of lime. Kali Hinduism may be bloody,
but Buddhism here is beastly.
Almost as bad are the stone images and inscriptions in the caves of
Elephanta out from Bombay. The temple columns, aisles and figures
are hewn from the living rock. I looked at the three-faced Siva, and
noticed the stylish headdress; saw another figure with cap ornament of
human skulls; Virag, half-male and female, and the Siva shrine with the
“lingam” altar before which millions of barren wives and hopeless girls
had prostrated and prostituted themselves in Sivaite festivals. The
temple keeper beckoned me to one side and gave me a private lecture on
these “lingam,” phallus or Priapus symbols of sex organ worship which I
had found in other lands. While he proceeded, my blush illuminated the
dark cave, and as I left the “altar” a lady of our party approached and
asked me what I had been looking at and what the guide said. I replied,
“Forget it!” She wouldn’t, I couldn’t, and since she was past middle age
and married, I looked her square in the eye and reeled it off as if it
were an Edison record. “Thank you,” she said. “It is always well to know
about religion from a priest.” I told her I was no priest and this was
no religion. There was a pool of clear water here and the frogs, big as
turtles, were standing on their hind legs, with folded arms and eyes wide
open with amazement, as if they were more shocked at what I had said than
at the suggestive statues and symbols round about. If I had been alone I
would have divested myself of all baggage but my trunks and plunged in to
keep them company.
The blasé or bored can always find something new at a Hindu wedding or
Nautch dance. I saw Nautch girls--dressed in scarlet skirts trimmed with
gold, caris or scarfs of brightest colors, trousers tight-fitting and
gilt-embroidered, bracelets or anklets of gold, and silver bells--dancing
for hours, illustrating pictures of thought, passion and emotion, to
love-throbs, tune and time. Once I heard a story of the origin of the
Nautch dance: A Rajah’s daughter was stolen and raped; the ravisher was
caught by the father, strung up, slashed like ribbons on a Maypole, then
whirled around, and anyone on whom the blood spattered was privileged to
assault any woman he met.
India has no old maids or bachelors. Cradles are robbed of their babies
for marriage, and some suitors are promised before born if sexed right.
The proverb reads, “Every girl at 14 must be either a wife or a widow.”
Many men in India are slaves--all women are. Woman is not to be trusted,
and is held the cause of man’s sin whether she be sage or fool. She is
object and subject as a child to her father, as wife to her husband,
and as widow to her son’s or husband’s relatives. To obey her hubby is
supposed to be the only God she needs or wants. To obey and worship him
is to worship the gods (though he be a devil). Caste injures them more
than men, and she is old before 25 and looks it. Child-marriage is the
style and prevails in places, though the British government made a law
that a girl might be married yet not live with her husband till she was
12 years old. Imagine a 10 year old girl marrying a 30 year old man. Any
negligent father, who does not find a husband before his daughter is 12,
is held to be a public monster and criminal. Of course, boys and girls
mature earlier in the tropics and have families when people North haven’t
gone so far as to be even sweethearts.
In the comparative study of other religions I could always find some
sweetness and light, but Hinduism is darkness and dirt. Its votaries
are vile, their gods are deified beasts, and their devotees are beastly
depraved. Caste, child-marriage, obscene worship, Nautch girls,
ignorance, superstition, poverty and plague prove Hinduism to be a hell
on earth and a disease that dwarfs and damns man’s body, mind and soul.
_Questions and Answers_
=Dear Captain Billy=--My two sisters and myself have been gratified this
week by the arrival in each family of a set of twins. Kindly suggest
names for these six darlings.--=Patriotic Patricia.=
My moss-covered suggestion: “Pete and Repeat, Kate and Duplicate, and Max
and Climax.”
* * * * *
=Dear Capt. Billy=--I am a sweet eighteen year old girl and last night I
met a nice man with a limousine that wants to take me for a ride. Will it
be alright to go?--=Alice.=
Let your conscience be your guide.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=--Do you think it would be alright if I took a tramp
in the woods.--=Sweet Sixteen.=
Yes, it’s excellent exercise.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billious=--I have been married a few months and my hubby is
always saying our baby is a much abused creature. What do you think he
means?--=Mrs. Guey.=
He probably means that your darling baby gets a bust in the mouth every
hour or so.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bull=--Do you like cocktails?--=Ana Monyous.=
Yes, I should say so. You finish the answer.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=--I’ve often heard the toast: “To George Washington,
first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Do
you think he was always first?--=Willie, age 12.=
Yes, with the exception that he married a widow.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=--What kind of a woman should I marry?--=Sandy Henna.=
Venus would be fine. She would be perfectly safe, as both her arms are
missing and she couldn’t throw things.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=--What is a definition for man and woman?--=Pinkie
Cherry.=
Man, Pinkie, is the Lord of Creation, and Woman is the lady of Recreation.
* * * * *
=Dear Banger=--I want to be married secretly. What shall I do?--=Pussy
Foot.=
Go to a justice of the peace.
* * * * *
=Dear Phiz=--Is strychnine effective in stopping heart ailments.--=Co-ed.=
Yes, if taken in sufficient quantities, strychnine will stop anything.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bill=--You’ve been in the army, Cap, so will you kindly
tell us the difference between an engagement and a battle?--=Ida Clare.=
Yes, Ida, and I’m married, too. The engagement, you realize, takes place
before the marriage.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Bull=--What are wedding bells?--=Katinka Stinka.=
Lemon peals.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=--What is the solution of the liquor problem?--=A.
Boozem Friend.=
A solution of malt and hops containing about 5 per cent of water.
* * * * *
=Dear Farmer Bill=--How’s your corn crop this year? What did it go to the
acre?--=Acorn Farmer.=
Wa’al, I reckon it’ll go about 350 gallons to the acre, by gum.
* * * * *
=Dear Doctor Billy=--Will you kindly inform as to the bacterial proteins
for cutaneous tests?--=Sheesa Whopper.=
She sure is a whopper for a farmer to answer. In fact, I found it
necessary to call in the professional advice of old Doc Yak, who gives
this reply: The bacterial proteins are staphylococcus aureus, micrococcus
tetragenus, diphtheroid, streptococcus viridans, non-haemolyticus and
pneumococcus. (Thank you, doctor.)
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=--What is the proper definition of an oyster?--=G.
Howie Snortz.=
An oyster, Mr. Snortz, is a peculiar fish better known as a bivalve and
looks like a nut.
* * * * *
=Dear Bilious Billy=--Does cider really get hard enough to cause
intoxication? I have a few gallons at home and do not care to indulge in
strong drink?--=Molly Coddle.=
Hard? I should say it does, Molly. I drank three glasses one night last
week while in Minneapolis and before long I thought I was crushed rock.
Friends tell me I laid down on Nicollet Avenue and tried to pull the
asphalt over me.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain=--Is it quite proper for a lady to let her husband look at
her Whiz Bang?--=Lotta Ginger.=
Quite right, we would say--providing, of course, that it’s Captain
Billy’s.
* * * * *
=Dear Bill=--I have been troubled with the seven-year itch. What shall I
do?--=Ticklish Tillie.=
Scratch yourself.
* * * * *