India and the Indians Part 8

For the more popular kind of music you must go to the native band, which is the universal adjunct to every sort of entertainment, great or small. The members of the band are unwearied in their exertions on small drums and shrill pipes. The tune, which never seems to vary whatever the occasion, consists of almost as few notes as the song of an Indian bird, and it is played over and over again and no one grows weary of it. Even the performers play it for the thousandth time with almost as much enthusiasm as when they first began. When they have played far into the night, and fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, they wake up in the morning to begin again.

Though native instruments and the method of playing them does not usually appeal to the English ear, except for condemnation, it must also be said that Indians in general a.s.sert that they do not recognise any particular beauty in English melodies; and the wealth of sound of a full band, performing the composition of some great master, only suggests to the Eastern mind a confused medley of meaningless noise.

At the weddings of wealthy men who wish to make a special display, there sometimes appears what they call a "Europe" band, which consists of Indian performers, dressed in cast-off uniforms and with Western instruments, on which they play what are meant to be English popular airs. But there is usually the old-fashioned band also in attendance, and there is no question as to which band the guests really cared to listen.

The truth appears to lie in the fact that the two nations are looking for different effects in music. Europeans value the melody, and the harmony which enriches it. Easterns care little for the melody, dislike the harmony, but think everything of the time. It is the unvaried repet.i.tion of the same meagre tune, repeated over and over again with apparently wearisome monotony, which is the attractive feature. And the amount of pleasure to be found in listening to any musical exercise is proportionate to the skill of the performer in beating out his even measure on drum, or pipe, with unwearied pertinacity.

Sir George Clarke, Governor of Bombay, at a meeting of an Indian Choral Society in Poona, in August 1911, in sketching the diverse developments of Eastern and Western music, suggested that the tones of the instruments in vogue had affected the art of singing, and that the falsetto style, common amongst Indians, is in imitation of the shrillness of their reed instruments, while the fuller voice, cultivated in Europe, follows the development of the ampler harmonies of Western instruments. Each style of music represents a cultivation of certain qualities with a neglect of others. The ultimate result of intelligent study should be the combination of the great qualities of both into a richer music than either East or West has known hitherto.

Sir George Clarke went on to say that, before Indian music could develop or become widely known, it must be reduced to some intelligible method of writing. Progress in this direction seems rather slow at present, and Indian music is really in the position of an illiterate struggling against a highly educated compet.i.tor.

Some attempt has been made to adapt Indian tunes to the translations of English hymns, but without signal success. Also, Indian Christian converts do not encourage the attempt. They say that the few popular native tunes are so suggestive of the indecent songs to which they are generally sung, that it is impossible to use them safely. English popular melodies which some people, especially dissenters, have adapted for religious use have no a.s.sociations of this kind. The only doubtful point in their adaptation is the risk of introducing an element of comedy.

Christian Indians get to like the tunes usually a.s.sociated with the English hymns which have been translated into their vernacular, and they sing them with spirit. Indian choir-boys often give sufficient promise to indicate that, if they could be given the skilled training which is generally lacking, they would not fall behind their English brothers in sweetness of voice and delicacy of expression.

CHAPTER XV

INDIAN MEALS

Stones for grinding grain. Exclusively women's work.

Elaborate inspection of the grain. Food a matter of much interest. The meals of a Hindu. Difference between Indian and English custom. Even beggars fastidious. Refinement of native dishes. What the daily bread is like. Hindu caution after the bath.

In the last chapter we spoke of the women singing when they are grinding at the mill. The grinding-stones of their handmills are of various sizes. The smaller ones are rather more than a foot in diameter, and can be worked by one person. The lower millstone is let into the ground. The upper one has an upright wooden handle stuck into it near the edge. The grinder sits on the ground close to the stones, and grasping the handle causes the upper stone to revolve vigorously.

The larger stones have two handles, and then two women work together.

They often go on grinding for some hours, generally beginning in the early morning while it is still cool. By preference they only grind what is required for the day's use, because the freshly-ground flour is thought to make the best bread. But in the case of schools, or the large composite families of prosperous Hindus, a large quant.i.ty of flour is needed daily.

The custom of grinding the grain at home is almost universal, because of the adulteration of flour sold ready ground. There are numbers of working women whose sole occupation is that of grinding at various people's houses, and though it is hard work, they earn in return what is to them a pretty good living. It is curious that men apparently never lend a hand in this department, even if the wife is poor and sickly, and sorely in need of help. It appears to be regarded as such an absolutely feminine employment, that a man would be disgraced if he put his hand to the mill at all. Even Christians have not quite succeeded in shaking off this idea.

Careful housewives go over all the grain minutely before it is ground, so as to make quite sure that no bit of husk, or defective grain, finds its way into the mill. This is a long and troublesome process.

Watching a Christian woman engaged in this occupation, I said something to her husband with reference to its being rather a toil. "I always have the grain prepared in this way," he said cheerfully. "Do you never help your wife?" I asked. "No," he smilingly answered, "but our little girl does."

Ever since the earth began to be inhabited by man and woman, food has been a delicate subject to deal with, and probably the larger number of domestic quarrels find their origin in this department of the household. In India, certainly, food is a subject of prominent importance in the minds of the people of the country. Well-to-do Hindus find their chief interest and pleasure in the two big meals of the day. Very few practise any real asceticism concerning food. An orthodox Hindu does not break his fast until he has taken his bath and worshipped his household G.o.ds, so that he is habitually fasting till nearly noon. But those who have been always accustomed to this say that it causes them no inconvenience. It must also be remembered that their evening meal is nearly always very late. If guests are expected, and the preparations more elaborate than usual in consequence, the meal may be delayed till ten o'clock or later.

But at these two princ.i.p.al meals the Indian, if he can afford it, eats a large quant.i.ty. It is not merely that his appet.i.te should be satisfied, but if the meal is to be regarded as a satisfactory one there must be the physical sensation of repletion, and the diner does not need to eat again for several hours. Nevertheless he nibbles odds and ends of spices and fruits and sweets a good deal in the course of the day. The custom of early tea, with some accompaniment, has become general with Indians who have got a little familiar with English ways.

Easterns are astonished at the frequency of English meals, under the idea apparently that we eat to repletion three or four times a day, instead of only twice as they do. The breakfast bell rang when two or three young Indian students were talking in the verandah, and they asked if they might come and see our table spread for the meal. We gladly a.s.sented, and explained the use and nature of the things set upon it. Fortunately it was not a beef day, and they seemed relieved to find that there was nothing terrible on view. But they expressed great surprise at what appeared to them the small amount of food provided, and we were able to point out the difference between English and Indian customs in this respect, and that though our number of meals daily is greater, we eat less than they do on each occasion.

A very large number of Indians, both Christian and heathen, live on poor fare and go to bed hungry. This is from necessity, not from choice. The poorest man is particular in his degree as to what he eats, more especially as to the manner in which his food has been prepared. Even the beggar off the road will unblushingly and loudly grumble if the fare at a feast to which he has been invited by some wealthy man is not exactly to his mind. The children of mission schools, many of whom have come out of lives of real privation, are sometimes very critical about their meals, and more especially as to how it has been cooked, and they will leave a good supper uneaten and go hungry to bed because of some trifling defect in the manner of its preparation.

Most Indian women have been taught how to cook from early childhood, and many of them are experts and take much pleasure in their art. Some of the native dishes take a great deal of care and toil to prepare, and except that their tendency is to be rather too pungent for the English palate, a really first-cla.s.s Indian dinner is refined in appearance; and in the variety of dishes, provided there are always certain things which can be eaten with pleasure. The varied objects which make up the meal are neatly grouped before each guest, and they are meant to be taken in a certain order, so that the palate will be constantly renovated for the next dish which it is to taste.

Even the ordinary daily bread, in the form in which Indians like to eat it, gives a great deal of trouble to those who have to get it ready. Not only is there the grinding of the flour to be done, but it has next to be made up into thin flat cakes which look something like pancakes, which are then lightly baked on a hot plate, and are eaten at once by preference while hot. The preparation and baking of these means that the women of the household have been busy in the kitchen from an early hour, especially in Christian schools, where the children's day begins earlier than in most Hindu households. Hindu schools and colleges commence work very late in the day, because of the necessity of getting the bathing and feeding over first.

Even the most orthodox Hindus have now no scruples about touching Christians, except after they have taken their bath, but previous to their meal. Having occasion to consult a Brahmin pleader rather frequently concerning the purchase of some land, he always made a point of shaking hands rather effusively, with an eye to business. But I called one morning when he had just emerged from his bath, and he was then careful to keep at a safe distance, because contact would have involved the necessity of bathing again before he took his food, in order to get rid of the ceremonial pollution.

CHAPTER XVI

HINDU PHILOSOPHY

The barrenness of Hinduism. _The Golden Threshold_; its auth.o.r.ess--her poetry; the four kinds of religion; her motherly instincts; her letters; her father; her search for beauty; her portrait. Rarity of happy Hindu faces. The picture of "Jerome."

People sometimes say, when asking about Hinduism, "Surely if the idolatry, and folly, and indecency, which we know exists in the religion as it now is could be cleared away, we should find remaining some deep philosophic thoughts and mystical poetical fancies which we might admire?"

The reply to this question is that, if Hinduism was subjected to this purging process, what would be left would be practically nothing at all. This can be strikingly ill.u.s.trated in the following way.

An Indian lady, Mrs Sarojini Naidu, has published a little volume of poems called _The Golden Threshold_. There is an introduction to the book by Mr Arthur Symons, giving a few particulars of the life of the auth.o.r.ess. She is apparently a thoroughgoing Hindu, although one of sufficient independence of character to marry another Hindu who was not a Brahmin like herself, and on that account meeting with obloquy from her own people. She is evidently a highly cultivated lady, knowing English perfectly. But though she has lived in England, and travelled much, there is nothing to indicate that she has been touched in any way by Christianity. She has had, therefore, only Hinduism from which to get poetic thoughts connected with religion. She is evidently a true poet, and if there had been anything in the religion capable of suggesting poetic ideas she would have certainly found it. She has undoubtedly a mind of great refinement, so that all that is otherwise in connection with Hinduism has to be eliminated from the field in which she could gather poetic thought. What, then, is the result?

While there is a distinct charm in the rhythm of her verses, their utter emptiness makes them of no real value. The only poem, curiously enough, in which a deeper note is struck is when she describes the four kinds of religion which flourish under the kindly rule of H.H.

the Nizam of Hyderabad: the Mohammedan, the Hindu, the Pa.r.s.ee, and the Christian. The verse is as follows:--

"The votaries of the Prophet's faith, Of whom you are the crown and chief; And they who bear on Vedic brows Their mystic symbols of belief; And they who worshipping the sun, Fled o'er the old Iranian sea; And they who bow to Him who trod The midnight waves of Galilee."

Each religion is happily touched with a delicate hand. To get a suitable idea concerning each into a couple of lines of real poetry shows a gifted mind, and the two last lines are specially happy. (The capital letter in the p.r.o.noun is so printed in the book.) Her mind coming thus into brief contact with higher and truer things, she rises in the concluding verse to a kind of benediction on this beneficent Mohammedan ruler, which almost approaches the nature of a prayer:--

"G.o.d give you joy, G.o.d give you grace, To shield the truth and smite the wrong, To honour Virtue, Valour, Worth, To cherish faith and foster song.

Your name within a nation's prayer, Your music on a nation's tongue."

The only other poem which rises above the mere commonplace is that in which Queen Gulnaar expresses the unsatisfied condition of her heart because she has no rival to her beauty, and with none to envy, life has no savour. Although seven beautiful brides are sent for and brought before her, she remains without a rival. Finally, with delight, she finds what she sought for in her own little two-year-old daughter. But it was not her religion which supplied the poetess with this pretty fancy. It arose out of her own motherly instincts, which amongst Easterns are charmingly dominant.

There are in the Introduction some extracts from Mrs Naidu's letters which show that if there was anyone who might have been expected to discover anything beautiful in Hinduism, or suggestive of true philosophy, or capable of being idealised in any way, she was the person who would have done so. She says herself: "My ancestors for thousands of years have been lovers of the forest and mountain caves, great dreamers, great scholars, great ascetics. My father is a dreamer himself, a great dreamer.... I suppose in the whole of India there are few men whose learning is greater than his.... He holds huge courts every day in his garden, of the learned men of all religions. Rajahs and beggars and saints, and downright villains all delightfully mixed up. And then his alchemy!... But this alchemy is only the material counterpart of a poet's craving for beauty, the eternal beauty....

What in my father is the genius of curiosity, is in me the desire for beauty."

She is described as being the embodiment of the wisdom of the East, her intellectual development such as to make her a wise counsellor, combined with "pa.s.sionate tranquillity of mind."

Yet with this long ancestry of dreamers, and her own intellectual capacity, and her poetic craving to find beauty, which even Nature did not satisfy (because what is Nature without Nature's G.o.d?), she obviously finds Hinduism completely barren of what she was yearning for, and apparently not having searched for it anywhere else except in Nature, she never comes at it at all. She appears to have been struck by something in the faces of the monks that she saw in Italy, and she "at one moment longs to attain to their peace by renunciation." But as the secret of their peace was not known to her, it only makes her long for Nirvana, or final nothingness.

Her portrait at the beginning of the book represents a touching type of face which one meets with not unfrequently in India. The expression is dull and lifeless. There is none of the light which shines out of the face of a Christian Indian. But there is at the same time an expression of wistful longing for that hidden treasure which Hinduism could not give her, even when purged of its defilements. The result of which is, that her poetic mind has had to waste itself upon such themes as nightfall at Hyderabad, or the alabaster box in which she treasures her spices, or the bride weeping because her lord is dead.

It is no exaggeration to say that a really happy-looking Hindu is a rare sight, even when on pleasure bent. Childhood in the Hindu world has its flashes of fun, but except in the pa.s.sing excitement of some romping game, the faces of the children are usually as dull as those of their elders. Two Hindu boys were looking at the picture in the story-book of "Jerome, the Brahmin boy," in which the photographs taken on his first arrival is reproduced, showing his Hindu pigtail, and the paint marks on his forehead, and his sacred thread. Contrasted with this is the photograph taken soon after his baptism. I do not suppose that the boys understood the full significance of the pictures, and this made the comment of one of them the more valuable.

"There is a great difference," he said, "between these two pictures.

In the first the boy has a very bad face. But in the other picture it is very good." An English boy, writing in a letter on the subject of the same picture, says of Jerome as a Christian, "He looks twice as happy as when he was a heathen."

CHAPTER XVII

HINDUS AND RELIGION

Irreverence in Hindu temples. Robbing the G.o.d. Burial of G.o.ds. Justice in native states. Giving the t.i.tle of "G.o.d" to people. The G.o.d's relations. Hindu conception of G.o.d; of prayer. Nominal Hindus. The old army pensioner. The "thread"

ceremony.