Hindoo Holiday (6 page)

“Yes, yes. Music and dancing. And the boys will be dressed like the Gods.”

“Will they paint their faces?”

“No, no paint. I have done away with paint. I don't like all this . . . tattooing. But you must tell me which you like best.”

“Of course I will,” I said. “Are they very beautiful?”

“Very beautiful. But you will see.”

“It will be good to see a beautiful face,” I said; “for I haven't yet seen one in Chhokrapur, and I've been looking about for a bearer for myself. In fact, only yesterday I was saying to your Tahsildar,
[1]
‘I want a bearer, please, but he must be young and beautiful.'”

“I have the son of my barber,” said His Highness. “He works for me. I will show him to you. He is very beautiful . . . fair, but unreadable. I call him the White Sphinx. He is sixteen, and has been with me for two years; but he does nothing, nothing, but look at motors and go to sleep.”

For some time after this he was thoughtful; then he asked: “Haven't you a saying in England, ‘No man can be a hero to his valet'?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I will tell you to-morrow,” he said mysteriously, and called for a cigarette.

At eight o'clock to-night His Highness sent a carriage for me to bring me to the Palace. I was reading in my house when I heard the trampling of horses up the drive, and ran out in time to see the royal coach come thundering up out of the darkness.

A pair of spirited piebald stallions drew it, and two erect postillions were balanced so lightly behind that in their floating white cotton garments they seemed to fly, winged figures, unsupported through the air.

Up towards the Guest House it went, and then, deflecting, swept a grand circle round the plateau to where I stood, and as the charioteer pulled up abruptly in front of me, the postboys vaulted lightly to the ground and ran, one to the horses' heads, the other to open the carriage door for me. All three salaamed. The dust subsided. It was very impressive.

“Salaam,” I said, and climbed up into the shabby open victoria.

Nothing more was said. The door was closed, the coachman cracked his whip, and the postboys swung themselves back on to their perches as we rolled off down the hill. The coachman had a clapper bell beside him, which he rang all the time as though we were a fire-engine. We drew up at the back of the Palace, where a canvas screen is always stretched at night to conceal the King's private entrance and form a small enclosure in which he may walk. A servant was awaiting me here and guided me behind, where another white-clad servant, a good-looking boy with very bright teeth and a single ear-ring, took charge and beckoned me past the sentries and up the steps to an enormous plaster porch. I followed him through the entrance, and found myself in a small dark stone room which contained a cow.

Another doorway opposite brought me into the “theater.” This was an open courtyard with a concrete floor. Ordinarily, it seemed, it was quite bare; but now it was prepared for the “Gods.” I was entering from the back, I found, for the scene was set facing away from me towards the wall on my left. From the audience's point of view, then, there was a dais in the center of the court on which two wooden chairs were set arm to arm. A carpet was spread in front of it. To the left, along the edge of the carpet, squatted four musicians, having between them two tom-toms, a pair of small brass cymbals, and three instruments resembling fiddles. On the right, rather removed, was a low divan, covered with a sheet. A charcoal fire in an earthenware basin glowed beside it. Over all, under the sky, a huge carpet was spread like an umbrella, a stout pole supporting it in the middle and supplying the handle. I took these things in gradually. The four musicians salaamed. Except for them the place seemed empty. My guide indicated the divan. I was to sit on it. I did so, leaving room for His Highness beside me.

“How do you do, Mr. Ackerley?”

I scrambled to my feet again and looked round, but could not see him anywhere; then his husky laughter drew my attention to the wall which the scene faced, and I realized that he was on the other side of it. There was a green reed blind in the center which covered a doorway, and on both sides of this the stone wall had been grilled to form windows of a latticed design.

“Are you comfortable there? Are you warm? Would you like to come in here? Then come.”

The servant held the reed blind aside for me, and I stepped into His Highness's private closet. It was a very small room, measuring about six feet by twelve, furnished with a
charpai
(a simple low wooden Indian bedstead, without back or sides, strung with hempen bands), and, a little removed from it, a
chaise-longue
, both draped in white sheets. A small three-legged table, provided with an ashtray and some loose brown cigarettes, stood by each, the
charpai
being further equipped with a second small table which carried a tray of betel-leaves, and, on the floor, a basin of charcoal and a spittoon. An oil lamp by the chair shed light and completed the furniture. There was no carpet and no decoration. A second curtained doorway diagonally opposed the one by which I had entered, and one of the walls had been recessed to form what looked like a large sink.

Among the cushions on the bed sat the King, smoking a cigarette. His legs had disappeared; they were folded up and tucked away beneath him, and only a small fragile body could be seen, sitting up erect on its base, like a nine-pin. How small, how thin he is! I thought, for I have never before seen him so lightly clad. He wore a fine white cambric nightshirt, on which a necklace gleamed, and a claret-colored silk shawl hung over his shoulder. His small head, with its soft untidy graying hair, was bare, and I saw for the first time his Hindoo lock hanging low down on the nape of his neck. Like a little monkey he looked; charming, I thought. I advanced to shake hands with him.

“No! no! You must not touch me,” he said, shrinking away. “Nor my bed,” he added. Then he laughed at my bewilderment.

“To-night I am holy,” he explained, still laughing as though it were the greatest joke, “because I have had my bath; and no one may touch me. Did you not know that? You must always say to me when you come here, ‘Is the Maharajah touchable or untouchable?'”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “I must begin again. Is the Maharajah Sahib touchable or untouchable?”

“Untouchable,” he nodded, and directed me to sit down in the long chair.

“Is this your theater box?” I asked, looking round the room.

He was amused.

“This is my . . . living-room. I do everything here. I sleep and read here, and do all my business here. My wife used to live above.”

He laughed again at my obvious surprise and then called out some order in Hindi. The musicians tuned up.

“Now the Gods are coming,” he said; “and you must tell me which you like best.”

Immediately some servants came forward from the back and held outstretched between us and the scene a pretty blue velvet cloth, bordered with silver thread. The music began, a strange thrilling sound, accompanied by chanting; then the cloth was dropped, and Rama, one of the earthly manifestations of the God Vishnu, was revealed seated upon his throne with his wife Sita beside him. A maidservant stood on each side of the dais. All were boys. Rama was splendidly dressed in bright colors, a pink coat and gold silk trousers fastened round the ankles. He wore an enormous headdress and ropes of artificial pearls, and had a line of red and yellow paint down the bridge of his nose. Sita was also gilded, but not so gay, and wore a coronet. She sat in a heap with her chin on her chest, and looked very peevish. Both of them wore a single pearl suspended from the tips of their noses. The maidservants were also dressed in gold; they were very young, about twelve years old, and blinked self-consciously.

“What do you think of him? What do you think of him?” His Highness kept repeating.

“I don't think I'm very impressed by him,” I said.

“No?” said His Highness, astonished.

“Will he dance?”

“No, he cannot dance.”

“May I go out and have a closer look?”—It was difficult to get a comprehensive view through the holes in the wall.

“Of course. But you must not smoke in front of the God, or tread on his carpet.”

The music still continued, repeating a perpetual phrase, but the Gods sat immovable. Then an elderly man dressed in female attire appeared upon the carpet in front of Rama. He wore a long heavy dark-blue silk skirt, a pink veil over his head and bells round his ankles. Addressing himself to the God, he performed a heel-and-toe dance, gyrating slowly with outstretched arms and chanting.

I returned to ask the King who this personage was, but he gave me no opportunity.

“What do you think of him?” he at once asked, still referring to Rama.

I said I thought he had good physique, but that he looked stupid, and I didn't think him very nice.

His Highness seemed very surprised at this, and rather pained.

“And you do not think he is beautiful?” he asked.

“No, I don't. Do you?”

“Of course; I think he is very beautiful.”

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Sixteen.”

“And what else does he do besides being a God?”

“Nothing. The Gods are not allowed to do any other work. And when they are seventeen years old they cannot be Gods any more.”

“What happens to them then?”

“They are all fools,” was all he said.

Meanwhile the dance had ended, the cloth was spread again, and when it was removed Rama had retired to be replaced by Krishna, with his favorite Gopi maiden, Radha, who was impersonated by the same boy who had played Sita. Krishna was a much nicer-looking boy than Rama, and I said so at once to His Highness's prompt and inevitable question—a reply which seemed to intensify his astonishment. Krishna was dressed in bright green and wore bells round his ankles, which indicated that he was not a lily of the field like Rama, but was able, at any rate, to spin; but he began his performance by singing from his throne in a pleasant, rather monotonous voice, gesticulating awkwardly from side to side with stiff brown hands. Then he rose to his feet and performed a fine exhilarating dance (in which the elderly “lady,” who was now seated in the “wings,” eventually joined), beginning with heel taps and slow, stiff, dignified gyrations, which got faster and faster until he sank to the carpet and whirled like a top on his knees. This excited me to applaud, until I remembered Rama, and stopped for fear of causing jealousy. This boy was replaced by another, also impersonating Krishna, while Radha still occupied the other chair and took no part, and apparently little interest, in the proceedings.

This third boy was dressed in dark blue silk and was not at all attractive. He was stunted and had a tendency to spinal curvature; but he was said to act well in the play about to be performed. This was opened by the entry of a priest made fat with many pillows, which were supported by a broad green cummerbund. He carried a staff in one hand and some cooking utensils in the other, and was rendered still more farcical by the addition of a false beard, which seemed to sprout from his nostrils, and a string of wooden beads the size of cricket balls round his neck. The elderly “lady,” who was sitting patiently on the carpet, received him, and I was told that he was a Brahman come, according to custom, to honor her by eating in her presence on the occasion of the birth of her child.

Stones and sticks were brought, and a fire actually lighted to boil the priest's pot; in the preparation of which he pretended that his beard had caught fire, a jest which provoked even Radha to merriment. Then, with the “lady” (she was a rich woman, a daughter of one of the Shepherd Kings, and inhabited a palace) opposite him, he sat down in front of the fire, and raising his eyes to heaven, called on the God Vishnu to bless the cooked food. But, taking advantage of the Brahman's momentary abstraction, Krishna, who was supposed to represent the lady's newly-born babe, slid from his throne, and crawling over to the priest's food, touched it.

This angered the priest very much.

How dare a child of a woman of that caste touch the food of a Brahman! How dare the woman allow her child to do so! The child must be beaten! So he chased Krishna round the carpet, waving his rod and making irate noises until the woman pacified him and persuaded him to begin the ceremony all over again. This necessitated throwing the food away and washing not only the contaminated utensils but himself also; so he retired to a corner of the carpet and rolled about on his face and back as though he were in water, until one of Krishna's maidservants said she was a tortoise and seized him by the leg, much to his indignation.

His Highness who was chewing betel-leaves and explaining the action of the play to me, was so amused by this incident that he choked and was obliged to eject most of his leaf into the spittoon.

So again the meal was prepared—and again the same thing happened. No sooner did the priest raise his eyes to invoke the blessing of Vishnu upon his food than the baby crawled over and touched it. Again the priest stormed and chased the child, and again the woman pacified him and persuaded him to begin all over again. But when it occurred the third time, and the priest seemed too discouraged to do more than glare morosely at the provoking baby, the woman said:

“Why do you trouble this poor old man? Can you not leave him in peace?”

And the child answered:

“But he called upon me and I came. I am the God Vishnu.”

And so it was . . . Krishna the Shepherd King, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu; the priest bowed before him and praised him, and the play ended in a general dance.

“Did you like it?” asked His Highness.

“Yes, indeed! I thought it was all—”

“And which of the Gods did you like the best?”

“Krishna.”