India and the Indians Part 10

Battles in the air. Final result. _Itte-dhandu_; how played.

The Indian "Tom Tiddler's ground."

Indian children are fond of games, and many Indians, until quite advanced in life, continue to play games of a nature which are usually a.s.sociated with childhood. Cricket has become widely popular in all the larger schools and colleges, and football also, but to a less degree. Christian boys of all ages play these two games everywhere with great zest, and the Hindu boys in their neighbourhood, stimulated by the sight, follow their example to some extent. But they are hindered by the scarcity of the necessary apparatus, which costs more than most Indian boys can possibly afford. If schools and colleges in England would systematically send their cast-off gear for games, carriage paid, to foreign missions they would do a good work in helping to keep young lives in wholesome and happy occupation. Even an old tennis ball is received as a real treasure by an Indian boy, and any number of b.a.l.l.s would be gratefully welcomed by every mission.

In playing cricket it is almost a matter of necessity that the English expressions connected with the game should be used, even by those who know no other English. Out in a village, where English is never spoken, it sounds curious suddenly to hear from the cricket field, "How's that?" p.r.o.nounced sharply and clearly; and then the prompt and equally incisive reply, "Not out." Wonderful to say, the decisions of the umpires are accepted with tolerable readiness, except when they are flagrantly contrary to fact, as they sometimes are. A few of the politically disaffected students have tried to boycott the game as a foreign importation, but they have not met with much success.

There is a proper season for all the purely Indian games, and to play any of them out of season is almost as great an enormity as to shoot a partridge in England before the 1st of September. If you ask an Indian boy if he has been playing a certain game, and if it happens not to be in season, he will look at you with an air of pained surprise, and briefly saying "No," he will change the subject.

Indians of almost any age play marbles, and there are many divers ways of doing this, the rules of which are clearly established by an unwritten tradition and are strictly adhered to. If a disputed point arises when a company of boys are playing, an appeal to a senior bystander is always conclusive. Games between experts are watched with interest by quite a number of lookers-on, of every age. The Indian method of shooting a marble is to use the middle finger of the right hand as a sort of catapult. The marble is held with the left hand against this finger, and bending it back, it is suddenly let go. The effect of this is to volley the marble with great force and accuracy.

The English boy's method is tame by comparison. The prevailing gambling instinct finds scope in this game, because the marbles are generally kept by the winners, and experts ama.s.s great stores. Some schoolboys, with a money-lender's disposition, make a fortune by selling marbles cheap to small and inexperienced boys and then promptly winning them back again.

Spinning tops is an amus.e.m.e.nt of which the Indian boy never grows weary, and he only leaves off regretfully because its season comes to an end. If he has nothing else to do he will be happy spinning his top, on and off, from morning until nightfall, and naturally grows skilful in the art, although, if he has no companion, it does not admit of much variety. His chief exploit is to scoop up the top while it is still spinning, on to the palm or back of his hand, or on to his arm. But there are exciting contests, when one boy endeavours to spin his top with all his force on to the revolving top of an opponent, because if successfully accomplished the defeated top splits. A scarred veteran sometimes becomes quite an honoured hero from the number of its victims.

Some of the tops are of the roughest description, made by the village carpenter. More finished ones can be bought in the native bazaar for a farthing. But often a hopelessly disreputable-looking top, with an old nail for its spike, has a better record for deeds done than a more showy one bought in a shop. Those that are spun with the view of splitting their opponent often have, instead of a spike, a flattened bit of iron like a little chisel, which the boys sharpen on a stone, and with these they do great execution. Sometimes somebody's foot is seriously wounded in case of a miss-fire. Now and then, for a change, a boy will play with a whip-top.

Kite-flying amongst Indians is an exciting sport, quite different to the tame amus.e.m.e.nt of merely seeing how high a kite will go. The Indian kites are nearly always quite small, made of thin coloured paper pasted on to a frame of very slender wooden splints. The better kites are made of paper of several different colours tastefully combined, and often decorated with gold. Strong thread is used, of which the enthusiastic flyer has a large store on a wooden roller, which he intrusts to some small confederate who pays it out or takes it in as required, and is proud to be allowed to have this share in the sport.

But the real purpose of Indian kite-flying is to do battle with somebody else's kite up in the air. You have to try and so manoeuvre your kite that its thread crosses that of your opponent, who may be stationed quite a long way off and out of sight. He on his part will try and avoid you and get the upper hand himself. In the hands of expert flyers the contest is most exciting. Crowds will gather and watch the result with intense interest. The kites dodge, and rush upwards, and dive downwards, as if they were alive, and the fight often goes on for a long time. The thread is doctored with gla.s.s which has been pounded into fine dust and mixed with gum. This gives the thread great cutting capacity, so that if it fairly crosses that of its opponent, by a dexterous sawing movement the thread is cut, and the liberated kite sails away on its own account.

Then follows intense excitement amongst the crowds of onlookers far and near. The kite, without the support of its line, soon begins to flutter downwards. It is an established tradition that it becomes the property of the person into whose hands it falls. The original owner is rarely able to get near enough to secure it. Its zigzag course makes it problematical where it will fall. Generally those who think they are going to get it are disappointed by a final flutter, which takes it out of their reach into another pair of outstretched hands.

Not unfrequently n.o.body gets it, because it is torn to shreds amongst the many hands held up to grasp it.

Some schoolboys spend on kites, during their season, every farthing that comes to them; and kites can be bought from a farthing upwards.

They have not a long life, even at the best of times. Frequently they get torn by the wind on their first journey heavenwards, and a torn kite can rarely be repaired to much purpose. Flying compet.i.tions on a large scale, with substantial prizes for the winners, are organised, and attract crowds of spectators. The compet.i.tors are for the most part men, some being of mature age. It is a wholesome and entirely harmless form of amus.e.m.e.nt, except for the betting which takes place at the big contests.

There is a fine game called _itte-dhandu_, after the names of the two pieces of wood with which it is played. It is a little like tip-cat.

The _itte_ is a rounded bit of wood 2-1/2 inches long and perhaps an inch in diameter. Sometimes the ends are made to taper, but experts say that this is not correct. The _dhandu_ is a stick of similar diameter and about 15 inches long. It is a most exciting game, with an elaborate code of unwritten rules. It can be played by any number of persons from two onwards. The whole field is kept in constant occupation, movement, and excitement. I have in vain tried to get some one to commit the rules to paper. While the game is in season there is no anxiety about how to provide for the wholesome amus.e.m.e.nt of schoolboys, because they play it in every vacant interval, from early morning till they go tired and happy to bed. But directly the proper season has ended, the game is dropped till the next year. One of its many advantages is that almost any jungle will provide wood from which the _itte_ and the _dhandu_ are easily shaped with a pocket knife.

A game, not unlike "Tom Tiddler's ground," is very popular, chiefly on moonlight nights, amongst men and boys. It is often played in the streets of cities when traffic has ceased. The ground is divided into squares, either by sc.r.a.ping boundaries in the dust, which lies thick in the streets of a native city; or else at night by pouring water along the lines, which makes a very conspicuous mark on the dusty surface in the vivid moonlight of the East. This childish game is played with great delight by people whom you might think were much too old for such amus.e.m.e.nt, and it nearly always forms part of the programme of any village festival.

CHAPTER XX

INDIAN WRESTLERS

Wrestling. Village gymnasiums. Wrestling contests. The prizes. Rustic festivals. Modern novelties. Mineral waters.

Ice cream. Incandescent lights. The music. Absence of merriment. The dull crowd. Return of the victor. National characteristics apparent when playing games.

Wrestling is the chief indigenous athletic exercise of India. Nearly every village has its band of wrestlers and its gymnasium. The latter is often a substantial house as village houses go, much decorated with wall paintings inside and out. Besides the wrestling-pit, with its thick layer of soft earth, it often contains Indian clubs, large stones with which the young men exercise their muscles after the manner of dumb-bells, the post round which they twist and twirl to develop their arms and legs, and the drums which they beat in the temple and elsewhere on festivals.

Every village of importance has its annual wrestling day, to which people come from many miles round. Prizes are given from a fund subscribed by the villagers. It is a point of honour that no one competes in his own village, so that all the prizes may go to outsiders. The wrestling is conducted with much decorum, in accordance with exact and well-recognised rules. The decision of the referee appears to be nearly always accepted without dispute; or if ever there is a difference of opinion, the arbitration of one or two of the elders amongst the villagers is generally sufficient. If arbitration fails, a free fight is the only way of settling the matter; but such incidents are rare.

The prize is generally a turban, and however many turbans a man already possesses he likes to add to their number. Sometimes there is a good deal of very audible grumbling if the quality of the turban is thought to be defective. Now and then important contests between champions in the world of wrestlers are held in cities like Poona, and there is a charge for admission, and the prizes are of value, gold and silver rings and sums of money. Wrestlers train carefully when they are preparing for a contest, according to their own ideas of training, and they drink a great deal of milk. The best side of Indian village life is to be found in this sport, and as it is one of the few things which is not tainted by idolatry, I could always accept with pleasure an invitation to the gymnasium, or to be present on the annual sports day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE YERANDAWANA VILLAGE WRESTLERS OPPOSITE THEIR GYMNASIUM.]

In our village little dinner-parties take place in the houses (or, rather, outside the houses) of the princ.i.p.al farmers, the evening before the annual wrestling compet.i.tion. Feasts are nearly always held in the open air, partly because most of the houses are so small that there is not room inside to seat the guests; and also because low-caste people, who would not be allowed to come indoors, can be fed in the open so long as they sit a little apart from the rest.

Modern novelties are creeping into rustic festivals. Mineral waters of native manufacture, and often astonishingly brilliant in colour, have become a recognised luxury at such times; especially since it has become an understood thing that no breach of caste is involved if you drink your soda-water direct from the bottle. Enclosed in its gla.s.s case the liquid could not have been contaminated by any external touch, and there is no need to go so far back in its history as to ask who made the soda-water. The ice-cream man, calling out his wares in what is meant to be English, does a large trade in spite of the microscopic nature of his helpings. Native torches are being supplanted by the powerful incandescent lights of recent times, and one or two of these are hired for the occasion, and are brought out from Poona on the heads of coolies, and burn all night somewhere in the centre of the village. It is an essential element of all Indian festal enjoyments that they should begin in the evening and last all night. Extremes meet, and this is a peculiarity which the Indian social world seems to share, at any rate to a large extent, with the fashionable world in England. Of course a band is also a necessary feature.

I went down into the village one morning, after one of their festal nights, and found most of the villagers seated under the shade of a large tree listening to the band which, usually so indefatigable, was strumming rather feebly after its all-night exertions. It was accompanying a poor, faded-looking woman, who was singing in a peculiar hoa.r.s.e voice, with a slight attempt at action, and a feeble sort of skip at the end of each stanza. I did not understand what she was singing, but I soon withdrew, because the songs sung at such times are said to be nearly always bristling with improprieties.

But Indians take most of their pleasures sadly, and the curious feature of the whole scene was the complete absence of anything corresponding to fun or merriment. Both the singer and the members of the band were evidently meaning to be funny, but the audience might have been listening to a dull sermon in church, so far as their grave and uninterested faces were concerned. A visitor at any time almost during the festivities would have found them in the same condition.

Even when feasting, beyond a certain enjoyment in the process, there is no indication of merriment in the silent meal.

The wrestling compet.i.tions began in the late afternoon, when the power of the sun had a little moderated, and lasted until dusk. They were held in a field just outside the village, on newly ploughed land, which affords a soft bed for the combatants when they fall. Many large and beautiful mango-trees gave welcome shade to the two or three thousand spectators, who formed an immense and deep ring round the arena. Some of the young men of the place, armed with sticks, displayed much energy in keeping the ground clear. The elders of the village arranged the order of proceedings, and who was to compete with who. But in spite of the great a.s.sembly taking evident interest in what was going on, and especially in the spirited contests between boy-wrestlers, it was a distinctly dull crowd, and there was little animation in the faces of those who were watching the events closely.

The only group in which something approaching to cheerfulness was visible was in the knot of customers gathered round the sellers of fruit and drinks. On the road home the crowd sometimes shows a measure of joviality, and it is always customary to usher victorious wrestlers into their own village with shouts and loud proclamation of what has been accomplished. After a victory in one of the big city contests the hero may even be escorted home with lights and music.

It is in games, perhaps, more than in anything else, that national characteristics make themselves apparent. This is specially noticeable in India when anyone gets injured in sports or cricket, or if he has run an exhausting race. The Englishman hates to be fussed over, says that his injury is nothing, and that he can walk home quite easily, when perhaps his leg is broken; and he feels dreadfully ashamed of himself if he collapses at the finish of a race. The Indian, on the contrary, makes extraordinary demonstrations over a slight injury; he flings himself on the ground, and is apparently at the point of death.

His friends rush for water, and chafe his hands and legs, and they think the Englishman unfeeling if he ventures to say that he thinks the sufferer will soon be better. After these performances have gone on for a sufficient time, the injured man quietly gets up and resumes the game.

Almost invariably, at the end of any race, the winner thinks it necessary to put on the appearance of great exhaustion as long as anyone is looking at him. But when interest is diverted by preparations for the next race, the fit of exhaustion is easily concluded, and the sufferer joins the crowd as if nothing had happened.

CHAPTER XXI

BOOKS IN INDIA

India in fiction. Vernacular prayer books. Indian letters.

Indian advertis.e.m.e.nts. Mistaken method of education. Slang expressions. Swearing. Indians possess few books. Want of respect for books. Cheapness of Christian books. Indian printing and binding.

There are a few writers of fiction who depict Indian native life and talk faithfully. But many readers get an entirely false idea of India and its people from certain popular novels, which are supposed to paint a true picture, but in which the description even of cities, and villages, and scenery are often as unlike the reality as the circ.u.mstances and conversations. Indian people talk much in the same way as ordinary folk in other parts of the world, except that unseemly allusions are freely admitted into general conversation in a way which would not be tolerated in a Christian country. The absurd, high-flown conversational rhapsodies in the average Anglo-Indian novel are purely imaginary. "Kim's" talk fairly represents the ordinary talk of the Indian, although he was not one himself.

A missionary, newly arrived in the country, asked whether the Prayer Book, translated into the vernacular, suited the Indian people, or whether its sober language failed to satisfy the Easterns' desire for rhapsody. But the high flights such as he had in mind are only to be found in novels. People often speak of the Prayer Book as if it was a modern compilation of purely Western origin, and they seem to forget that it is teeming with ancient Eastern thought. It is an instance of its Catholicity that it supplies the needs of all nations. When carefully translated, many of the people of the East make more use of it than some good Christians do in England. Even rustic Indians use it intelligently and with great appreciation, and it forms their chief manual of private devotion. Indian children soon learn to follow the various services which it contains with happiness and profit. Many of them have made themselves quite familiar with the whole book from often studying it.

Innumerable examples have been published of the astonishing letters addressed by Indians to Government officials and others. They are astonishing, both in the nature of the requests made and the English in which their wants are expressed. Some people suppose that the examples published cannot be really authentic, or are greatly exaggerated. Those who are familiar with some of the originals know that exaggeration is impossible, because no feigned composition could beat the reality. Here is a letter, copied word for word, which a Hindu wrote and brought to me, asking me to correct it:--"To Colonel,----. Sir, my eldest son has been suffering since last year from Morbid heat of skin that is bone fever for which he had Quinine a.r.s.enic and chiretta, but without effect of recovery, he is gradually getting day by day weaker, and we have had 'chit chat' at your quarters for granting to my son an appointment as clerk in your office, please try your best and grant him one, for which act of kindness I shall ever pray for your long life and prosperity. Most probably I shall see you during the Christmas Holidays. An early reply will be greatly oblige, I remain Sir yours faithful and most respectful servant Bulwant."

Indian tradesmen in their advertis.e.m.e.nts often promise to pray for those who become their customers. Here is a quotation from an English leaflet, put out by a bookbinder in our neighbourhood:--"Rates and charges for different sorts of binding and gold work will be settled by the undersigned and the party and the undersigned will ever pray for him, who will call him up by a Post Card." The comicalities to be found in shop signboards in the English language are endless.

But though comical examples of the misapplication of language have been published to weariness, and the bombastic compositions of educated Indian students held up to ridicule, the fault does not lie with the pupil but with ourselves, who are ultimately responsible for the subjects which are set him to learn. So long as he is made to read books in antiquated English, he will naturally suppose that the flowery and bombastic language of Addison in the _Spectator_, or of Dr. Johnson, is the style which he ought to imitate when he writes a letter. Nor is it possible for him to discriminate, in what is to him a foreign language, between what is antiquated and out of date, and what is mere modern slang, and so he sometimes combines the two styles in his compositions with startling effect.

It would seem to be more rational to give him the best modern authors to study while he is still a learner, and to leave it to him to dive into the recesses of English literature, if he is so inclined, after he has ceased to be a pupil. Students bring their books of selections from English authors to the missionary, and ask him to clear up their difficulties. But a long and involved paragraph, with several obsolete words and obscure satire, is a tangle which it is almost hopeless to unravel satisfactorily, when you are dealing with a language so unlike in construction and modes of expression to that of the learner. Nor are some of the allusions in the selected pa.s.sages particularly edifying to the Hindu mind, ready to scent evil even where it does not exist. And they tempt him to buy cheap reprints of the literature of the past, in the hope that he will find matter congenial to a mind easily attracted to that which is pernicious.

Indian students are sometimes asked in their examinations to explain out-of-the-way or obsolete expressions which are little better than slang. As a result of this, students when speaking English will introduce some of these expressions into their talk, thinking that by so doing they show their familiarity with the language. When they try to embellish serious sentences in this way the result is sometimes remarkable. They will also repeat words, never heard in polite society, under the idea that they are in common use. Now and then students swear freely, supposing that all Englishmen do so. When taking shelter from the midday sun at a roadside police station--only a little hut a few feet square--I listened to the Mohammedan policeman as he talked to a beggar, who was exhibiting the contents of his bundle in order to show that he had not got any stolen goods. The policeman was talking in Marathi, but presently I noticed that at intervals a short word occurred, which sounded like what is popularly regarded as being essentially the Englishman's oath. I soon discovered that such was really the case, and that the policeman was adorning his talk with the word which he had heard Englishmen use when they wanted to give force to their orders. He was, of course, quite ignorant of its meaning, but it was unfortunate that the only English word which he knew, and which he evidently used constantly, should be of such a nature.

Few Indians possess any number of books, either in their own language or in English. The lesson books they may have used at school or college gradually get dispersed. Even in the houses of educated people little provision in the shape of bookcases is to be found. A recess in the wall may contain a shelf or two on which a few books are placed in disorderly array, but they are seldom read. Even those who read books take little pleasure in their outward appearance, and the binding is to them nothing more than a necessary protection to the book inside it. Some wealthy Indian, following to some extent Western fashions in his house, may have in his reception-room the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and a library edition of d.i.c.kens, elaborately bound. But they are rarely opened and only form part of the decorative furniture of the room, and stand a poor chance of notice in compet.i.tion with the big gramophone which, nowadays, is to be found in many well-to-do Eastern households.

Indians have yet to learn to treat books with the respect which is instinctive amongst people of refinement in most European countries.

To see a book rudely treated, or knocked about, is almost as distressing to many people as if it was an object sensitive to pain.

But a book in the hands of even a cultivated Indian is almost sure to suffer. If it is a new book, he will open it vigorously, and bend it back as far as it will go, in order to make it open properly. Its broken back is the permanent memento of the treatment it has received. Even Christian Indians are slow to learn the outward respect due to their religious books. Their prayer books and hymn books, more often than not, soon go to pieces for want of reasonable care, although women are much more careful than men. Want of appreciation of the value of a book may partly arise from the fact that nearly all the books which Christians use have been sold to them under cost price, through the help of societies. Bible societies issue copies of the Scriptures at extraordinarily cheap rates, so that they may come within the reach of everybody, however poor. Vernacular prayer books are generally sold at a cost much below that of their production. This was inevitable in early days when Christians were few in number, and often poor. But it has left the impression that a book is a thing of little value, easily replaced.

A Brahmin seeing a book on India on my table which he thought he would like to have, asked the price. On hearing that it was seven or eight shillings, he lifted up his hands in dismay and said, "The price is prohibitive. Write and tell Messrs Murray & Co."