The Moghul Part 45

They were well underway by sunup the next day, and as he fought off sleep in the rising heat, Hawksworth reflected on what he had seen along the road. It was clear the larger towns were collection depots for the Surat region, centers where grain, cotton, indigo, and hemp were a.s.sembled for delivery to the port. As their caravan rumbled through town after town, Hawksworth began to find them merely a provincial version of Surat, equally frenetic and self-absorbed. Their bazaars bustled with haggling brokers and an air of commerce triumphant. After a time he began to find them more wearisome than exotic.

But between these towns lived the other India, one of villages unchanged for centuries. To a Londoner and seaman they were another world, and Hawksworth understood almost nothing of what he saw. Several times he had started to ask Vasant Rao some question about a village, but the time never seemed right. The Rajput was constantly occupied with the progress of the caravan and never spoke unless he was giving an order. The long silence of the road had gathered between them until it was almost an invisible wall.

For no apparent reason this changed suddenly on the afternoon after Narayanpur, as the caravan rumbled into the small village of Nimgul and began working its way along the single road through the town. Vasant Rao drew his mount alongside Hawksworth's and pointed to a white plaster building up ahead that dominated the center of the village.

"I grew to manhood in a village such as this, Captain, in a house much like that one there."

Hawksworth examined the well-kept house, and then the village around it. Spreading away on all sides were tumbledown thatch-roofed homes of sticks and clay, many raised on foot-high stilts to keep them above the seasonal mud. Gaunt, naked children swarmed about the few remaining trees, their voices piping shrilly at play, while elderly men lounged on the porches smoking hookahs. Most of the able-bodied men seemed to be in the fields, leaving their women--unsmiling laborers in drab body- length wraps, a large marriage ring dangling from one nostril--to toil in the midday sun combing seeds from large stacks of cotton, sh.e.l.ling piles of small-eared corn, and boiling a dense brown liquid in wide iron pans.

Vasant Rao drew up his horse in front of the pans and spoke rapidly with one of the sad-eyed women. There was a tinkle of her heavy silver bracelets as she bowed to him, then turned to ask a turbaned overseer to offer them two clay cups of the liquid. Vasant Rao threw the man a small coin, a copper _pice_, and pa.s.sed one of the cups to Hawksworth.

It was viscous and sweeter than anything he had ever tasted. Vasant Rao savored a mouthful, then discarded the cup into the road.

"They're boiling cane juice to make _gur_, those brown blocks of sugar you see in the bazaars, for the Brahmin landholders to sell. She's a Camar, a low caste, and she works from sunup to dusk for a day's supply of _chapattis_, fried wheat cakes, for her household. Wages haven't risen in the villages since I was a boy."

"Why did she ask the overseer to bring you the cup?"

"Because I'm a Rajput." Vasant Rao seemed startled by the question. "I would pollute my caste if I took a cup from the hand of a Camar. If a Rajput or a Brahmin eats food that's been handled by a member of the low castes, he may be obligated to undergo ritual purification. If you are born to a high caste, Captain, you must honor its obligations."

Hawksworth studied him, wondering why he had finally decided to talk.

Security had been unaccountably tight for a shipment of lead. Vasant Rao had insisted that all carts be kept within the perimeter of the camp, inside the circle of guards. No one, neither drivers nor guards, had been allowed to touch the contents of the carts: sealed packages individually wrapped and lashed in bricks.

"Did you grow up around here?" Hawksworth tried to widen the opening.

"No, of course not." He laughed sharply. "Only a _feringhi_ would ask that. I was born in the foothills of the Himalayas, hundreds of _kos_ north of Agra. In a Rajput village. The villages in the Surat district are ruled by Brahmins."

"Are Rajput villages like this?"

"All villages are more or less the same, Captain. How could it be otherwise? They're all Hindu. This is the real India, my friend.

Muslims and Moghuls, and now Christians, come and go. This stays the same. These villages will endure long after the marble cities of the Moghuls are dust. That's why I feel peace here. Knowing this cannot be destroyed, no matter who rules in Agra."

Hawksworth looked about the village. It seemed to be ruled by cattle.

They roamed freely, arrogantly, secure in the centuries-old instinct that they were sacred and inviolable. Naked children had begun to swarm after the carts, and a few young women paused to cast discreet glances at the handsome Rajput hors.e.m.e.n. But the main work pressed monotonously forward. It was a place untouched by the world beyond its horizons.

"You said this was a Brahmin village. Are all the men here priests?"

"Of course not." Vasant Rao grunted a laugh and gestured toward the fields beyond. "Who would do the work? There must be the other castes, or the Brahmins would starve. Brahmins and Rajputs are forbidden by the laws of caste from working the land. I meant this village is ruled by Brahmins, although I'd guess no more than one family in ten is high caste. The brick and plaster homes there in the center of the village probably belong to Brahmins. The villages of India, Captain Hawksworth, are not ruled by the Moghuls.They're ruled by the high castes. Here, the Brahmins, in other villages, the Rajputs. These, together with some merchants called Banias, make up the high-caste Hindus, the wearers of the sacred thread of the twice born, the real owners and rules of India. All the other castes exist to serve them."

"I thought there were only four castes."

Hawksworth remembered that Mukarrab Khan had once described the caste system of the Hindus with obvious Muslim disgust. There are four castes, he had explained, each striving to exploit those below. The greatest exploiters called themselves Brahmin, probably Aryan invaders who had arrived thousands of years past and now proclaimed themselves "preservers of tradition." That tradition, which they invented, was mainly subjugation of all the others. Next came the Kshatriya, the warrior caste, which had been claimed by Rajput tribes who also had invaded India, probably well after the Brahmins. The third caste, also "high," was called Vaisya, and was supposed to be made up of society's producers of foods and goods. Now it was the caste claimed by rich, grasping Hindu merchants. Below all these were the Sudra, who were in effect the servants and laborers for the powerful "high" castes. But even the Sudra had someone to exploit, for beneath them were the Untouchables, those unfortunates in whose veins probably ran the blood of the original inhabitants of India. The Untouchables had no caste.

The part that annoyed Mukarrab Khan the most was that high-caste Hindus regarded all Muslims as part of the ma.s.s of Untouchables.

"The four main castes are those prescribed in the order of the _varna_, the ancient Aryan scriptures. But the world of the village has little to do with the _varna_. Today there are many castes," Vasant Rao continued, reflecting to himself how he loathed most Brahmins, who took every opportunity to claim caste superiority over Rajputs. "For example, the Brahmins here probably have two subcastes--one for the priests, who think up ceremonies as an excuse to collect money, and the other for the landowners, most of whom are also moneylenders. "There"-- he pointed--"that man is a Brahmin."

Hawksworth saw a shirtless man standing by one of the white plaster homes. He wore a dingy loincloth beneath his enormous belly, and as Hawksworth examined him he noticed a strand of thread that circled around his neck and under his left arm.

"Why is he wearing a cord around his shoulder?"

"That's the sacred thread of the high castes. I wear one myself."

Vasant Rao opened his shirt to reveal a strand of three colored threads, woven together. "It's consecrated and given to boys around age ten at a very important ceremony. Before the thread ceremony a boy has no caste. An orthodox Brahmin won't even eat with his son until after the boy's thread ceremony."

Hawksworth examined the thread. It was the first time he'd noticed it.

"What about the men who don't wear a thread?"

"They're the middle castes, the ones who do the work in a village.

Carpenters, potters, weavers, barbers. They serve the high castes and each other. The barber shaves the potter; the potter makes his vessels.

The Brahmins here probably won't sell them any land, so they'll always be poor. That's why the middle castes live in houses of mud and thatch instead of brick. And below them are the unclean castes. Sweepers, servants, shoemakers."

And below them are the non-Hindus, Hawksworth thought. Me.

"What the h.e.l.l's the reason for all this? It's worse than the cla.s.s system in England. I'll drink with any man, high or low. I have. And I usually prefer to drink with the low."

"That may explain why most _feringhis_ seem so confused and unhappy.

Caste is the most important thing in life." Vasant Rao glanced over his shoulder at the receding village. "It's the reason India's civilization has lasted for thousands of years. I pity your misfortune, Captain Hawksworth, not to have been born a Hindu. Perhaps you were once, and will be again in some future life. I think you'll someday be reborn a Kshatriya, a member of the warrior caste. Then you'll know who you are, what you must do. Unlike the Moghuls and the other Muslims, who have no caste and never know their purpose in life, a Rajput always knows."

As they rode on through the countryside Hawksworth tried to understand the purpose of castes. Its absurdity annoyed him.

Mukarrab khan was right for once. It's just a cla.s.s system, devised by the highborn to keep the others in submission. But why do they all seem to believe in it? Why don't the so-called lower castes just tell the others to go to h.e.l.l?

As they neared the next village, he decided to try to guess who was in which caste. But the central road in the village was deserted. Instead all the villagers, men and women, were cl.u.s.tered around a tall, brightly painted pole that had been erected near one of the dingy thatch homes. Vasant Rao's face brightened when he saw the pole.

"There must be a wedding here today. Have you ever seen one?"

"No. Not in India."

"This is a powerful moment, Captain, when you feel the force of _prahna_, the life spirit."

Vasant Rao pointed toward a pavilion that had been erected next to the marriage pole. From horseback Hawksworth could just make out the bride and groom, both dressed in red wraps trimmed in silver. The groom wore a high turban, on top of which were ceremonial decorations, and the bride was so encrusted with precious metals she might have been a life- size ornament: her hands, wrists, feet, ankles, and her head were all adorned with elaborately worked silver rings, bracelets, medallions.

Her necklace was a string of large gold coins.

"Where'd she get all the silver and gold?"

"Her father is probably a big landowner. Those ornaments are her savings and part of her dowry. Look, all the women wear thick bracelets of silver on their ankles. There's much gold and silver in India, Captain."

As Hawksworth watched, a Brahmin priest, his forehead streaked with white clay, finished lighting a fire in a central brazier and then began to recite.

"The priest is reciting from the Vedas, Sanskrit scriptures thousands of years old," Vasant Rao continued as they watched. "This is a ritual going back to the dawn of time."

The couple began repeating the priest's verses, their faces intent and solemn.

"They're taking the marriage vows now. There are seven. The most important is the wife's vow of complete obedience to her husband. See the silver knife he carries? That's to symbolize his dominion over her.

But really, she will belong to his entire family when she finally comes to live at his house."

"What do you mean by 'finally'?"

"These things take time. To begin with, a marriage proposal must come from the family of the girl. As she approaches womenhood, her father will hire a marriage broker, probably the village barber, to go to surrounding villages to look for a suitable match. I remember when I was young and they used to come to my village." Vasant Rao's face a.s.sumed a faraway expression. "I didn't want to marry and I dreaded seeing them, but unfortunately I was a good catch. My subcaste is high, and I had many sisters, which meant more women to share the work in our house. Then one day my father ordered the priest to cast my horoscope and I knew I was lost. A broker had brought an inquiry from a girl who had a compatible horoscope. Soon after, the engagement ceremony was held in our house. The girl was not there, of course; I didn't see her until three years later. When we finally had the ceremony you see here."