Chapter 7

[Picture: Hurree] A WARM altercation is going on in the verandah. A little human animal, with a very large red turban on his little head, stuck full of pins and threaded needles, stands on all fours over a garment of an unmentionable kind, which I recognise as belonging to me, and a piece of cloth lies before him, out of which he has cut a figure resembling the said garment. The scissors with which the operation was performed are still lying open upon the ground before him. His head is thrown so far back that the great turban rests between his shoulder blades, his brow is corrugated with perplexity, his mouth a little open, as if his lower jaw could not quite follow the rest of his upturned face. Hurree cannot know much about toothache. What would I not give for that set of incisors, regular as the teeth of a saw, and all as red as a fresh brick! I suppose the current quid of _pan suparee_ is temporarily stowed away under that swelling in the left cheek, where the fierce black patch of whisker grows. The survival of a partial cheek pouch in some branches of the human race is a point that escaped Darwin. But I am digressing into reflections. To return: a lady is standing over the quadruped and evidently expressing serious displeasure in some form of that domestic language which we call Hindoostanee, with variations. The charge she lays against him seems to be that he has, in disregard of explicit instructions and defiance of common sense, made a blunder to which her whole past experience in India furnishes no parallel, and which has resulted in the total destruction of a whole piece of costly material, and the wreck of a garment for want of which the _saheb_ (that is myself) will be put to a degree of inconvenience which cannot be estimated in rupees, and will most certainly be provoked to an outbreak of indignation too terrible to be described. So little do we know ourselves! I had no idea I harboured such a temper. However, Hurree does not tremble, but pleads that it was necessary to make the garment “leetle silope,” and though he admits that the slope is too great, he thinks the mistake can be remedied, and is pulling the cloth to see if it will not stretch to the required shape. Failing this, he has other remedies of a technical kind to suggest. I do not understand these matters, and cannot interpret his argument, but he puts his fingers on the floor and flings himself lightly to the other side of the cloth, to point out where he proposes to have a “fals hame,” or some other device. She rejects the proposal with scorn, and again impresses him with the consequences of his wicked blunder. At last I am glad to see that a compromise is effected, and the little man settles himself in the middle of a small carpet and locks his legs together so that his shins form an X and he sits on his feet. In this position he will ply his needle for the rest of the day at a rate inversely proportional to the distance of his mistress. When she retires for her afternoon _siesta_ the needle will nap too. Then he will take out a little _Vade Mecum_, which is never absent from his waistband, and unroll it. It is many-coloured and contains little pockets, one for fragments of the spicy areca, one for the small tin box which contains fresh lime, one for cloves, one for cardamoms, and so on. He will put a little of this and a little of that into his palm, then roll them all up in a betel leaf out of another pocket, and push the parcel into his mouth. Thus refreshed he will go to work again, not, however, upon the garment to which he is now devoted, but upon a roll of coloured stuffs on which he is at the present moment sitting. You see, times are hard and Hurree has a large family, so he is obliged to eke out his salary by contract work for the _mussaul_. His work suffers from other interruptions. When the carriage of a visitor is heard, he has to awaken the _chupprassee_ on duty at the door, and on his own account he goes out to drink water at least as often as the _chupprassee_ himself. As the day draws near its close, he watches the shadow like a hireling, and when it touches the foot of the long arm chair, he springs to his feet, rolls up his rags and threads into a bundle, and trips gaily out. As he does so you will observe that his legs are bandy, the knees refusing to approach each other. This is the result of the position in which he spends his days.

[Picture: A “leelte silope”]

This is how we clothe ourselves in our Indian empire. Our smooth and comfortable _khakee_ suits, our ample _pyjamas_, the cool white jackets in which we dine, in this way are they brought about. But you must not allow yourself to think of the _Dirzee_ simply as an agency for producing clothes. Life is not made up of such simplicities. The _raison d’être_ of that mango tree lies without doubt in the chalice of nectar, called “mango fool,” with which Domingo appeases me when he guesses that his enormities have gone beyond the limits even of my endurance; but I see that thirty-seven candidates for the place of the _chupprassee_ who went on leave yesterday have encamped under its shade, that they may watch for my face in the verandah. The trespassing goat also has browsed on its leaves, and from the shelter of its branches the Magpie Robin pours that stream of song which, just before the dawning of the day, in the cloudy border land between sleeping and waking flows over my soul. But I shall never really know the place that tree has filled in my life, unless someone cuts it down and gives me a full view, from my easy chair, of the dirty brick-burners’ hut, with the poisonous film of blue smoke playing over the kiln, and the family of pariah puppies below, sporting with the sun-dried remains of a fowl, which deceased in my yard and was purloined by their gaunt mother. Now let imagination blot out the _Dirzee_. Remove him from the verandah. Take up his carpet and sweep away the litter. What a strange void there is in the place! Eliminate him from a lady’s day. Let nine o’clock strike, but bring no stealthy footstep to the door, no muffled voice making respectful application for his _Kam_. From nine to ten breakfast will fill the breach, and you may allow another hour for the butler’s account and the godown; but there is still a yawning chasm of at least two hours between eleven and tiffin. I cannot bridge it. Imagination strikes work. The joyful sound of the Borah’s voice brings promise of relief; but no! for what interest can there be in the Borah if you have no _Dirzee_? In the spirit of fair play, however, I must mention that my wife does not endorse all this. On the contrary, she tells me (she has a terse way of speaking) that it is “rank bosh.” She declares that the _Dirzee_ is the bane of her life, that he is worse than a fly, that she cannot sit down to the piano for five minutes but he comes buzzing round for black thread, or white thread, or mother-o-pearl buttons, or hooks and eyes, that every evening for the last month he has watched her getting ready for to drive, and just as her foot was on the carriage step, has reminded her, with a cough, that his work was finished and he had nothing to do. If she could only do without him, she would send him about his business and be the happiest woman in the world, for she could devote the whole day to music and painting and the improvement of her mind. Of course I assent. That is a very commendable way of thinking about the matter. But, as an amateur philosopher, I warn you never to let yourself get under practical bondage to such notions. I tell you when you betake yourself to music or painting, carpentry or gardening, as a means of getting through the day, you are sapping your mental constitution and shortening your life: unless you are sustained by more than ordinary littleness of mind you will never see threescore and ten. All these things are good in proportion as you have difficulty in finding time for them. When you have to rise early in the morning and work hard to make a little leisure for your favourite hobby, then you are getting its blessing. Now, the _Dirzee_ is not a means of killing time. On the contrary, I see that he compels his mistress to take thought how she may save time alive, if she wishes to get anything done. He hurries the day along and scatters its hours, so that _ennui_ cannot find an empty minute to lurk in. I do not deny that he is the occasion of a few provocations, and the simile of the fly is just; but are not provocations an element in the interest of every pursuit, the pepper which flavours all pleasant occupation? I collect butterflies, and my friends think I am a man to be envied because I have such a taste. Do they suppose a butterfly catcher has no provocations? Was it seventeen or seventy times (I forget) in one page that I laid down my pen, put off my spectacles and caught up my net to rush after that brute of a _Papilio polymnestor_, who just came to the _duranta_ flowers to flout me and skip over the wall into the next garden? And does anyone but a butterfly hunter know how it feels to open your cabinet drawers just a few hours after the ants have got the news that the camphor is done? Does anyone but an entomologist know the grub of _Dermestes intolerabilis_? Why should a collection of butterflies be called an object of perennial interest and delight, and the _Dirzee_ an unmitigated provocation? They are both of one family. Nothing is unmitigated in this world.

Maria Graham tells us that in her time “the _Dirdjees_, or tailors, in Bombay” were “Hindoos of respectable caste,” but in these days the Goanese, who has not capacity to be a butler or cook, becomes a _Dirzee_, and in Bombay I have seen Bunniah _Dirzees_. Hurree can hold his own against these, I doubt not, but the advancing tide of civilization is surely crumbling down his foundations. It is not only the “Europe” shop in Bombay that takes the bread out of his month, but in the smallest and most remote stations, Narayen, “Tailor, Outfitter, Milliner, and Dressmaker,” hangs out his sign-board, and under it pale, consumptive youths of the Shimpee caste bend over their work by lamplight, and sing the song of the shirt to the whirr-rr-rr of sewing machines. And as Hurree goes by on his way home, his prophetic soul tells him that his son will not live the happy and independent life which has fallen to his lot. But he has a bulwark still in the _dhobie_, for the “Tailor and Outfitter” will not repair frayed cuffs, and the sewing machine cannot put on buttons. And Hurree is not ungrateful, for I observe that, when the _dhobie_ delivers up your clothes in a state which requires the _Dirzee_, the _Dirzee_ always gives them back in a condition which demands the _dhobie_.

[Picture: The Dirzee]

THE MALEE.

“Another custom is their sitting always on the ground with their knees up to their chins, which I know not how to account for.”—_Daniel Johnson_.

[Picture: The Malee] I HAVE been watching Thomas Otway, gardener. His coat hangs on a tree hard by, and he, standing in his shirt sleeves, is slaughtering regiments of weeds with a long hoe. When they are all uprooted and prostrate, he changes his weapon for a fork, with which he tosses them about and shakes them free of soil and gathers them into heaps. Then he brings a wheel-barrow, and, piling them into it until it can hold no more, goes off at a trot. I am told his only fault is that he is _slow_.

I have also stood watching Peelajee. He, too, is a gardener, called by his own people a _Malee_, and by us, familiarly, a _Molly_. He sits in an attitude not easy to describe, but familiar to all who have resided in the otiose East. You will get at it by sitting on your own heels and putting your knees into your armpits. In this position Peelajee can spend the day with much comfort, which is a wonderful provision of nature. At the present moment he also is engaged in the operation of weeding. In his right hand is a small species of sickle called a _koorpee_, with which he investigates the root of each weed as a snipe feels in the mud for worms; then with his left hand he pulls it out, gently shakes the earth off it, and contributes it to a small heap beside him. When he has cleared a little space round him, he moves on like a toad, without lifting himself. He enlivens his toil by exchanging remarks upon the weather as affecting the price of grain, the infirmity of my temper and other topics of personal interest, with an assistant, whom he persuaded me to engage by the day, pleading the laborious nature of this work of weeding. When two or three square yards have been cleared, they both go away, and return in half an hour with a very small basket, which one holds while the other fills it with the weeds. Then the assistant balances it on his head, and sets out at one mile an hour for the garden gate, where he empties it on the roadside. Then he returns at the same rate, with the empty basket on his head, to Peelajee, who is occupied sitting waiting for him.

It is clear that there may be two ways of doing the same thing. I have no doubt there is much to be said for both, but, upon the whole, the advantage seems to lie with the _Malee_. Otway does as much work in a day as Peelajee does in a week. But why should a day be better than a week? If you turn the thing round, and look at the other side of it, you will find that Otway costs three shillings a day and Peelajee two rupees a week. So, if you are in a hurry, you can employ half a dozen Peelajees, and feel that you are making six families in the world happy instead of only one. And I am sure the calm and peaceful air of Peelajee, as he moves about the garden, must be good for the soul and promote longevity. I hate bustle, and I can vouch for Peelajee that he never bustles. However, there is no need of odious comparisons. There is a time for everything under the sun, and a place. Here, in India, we have need of Peelajee. He is a necessary part of the machinery by which our exile life is made to be the graceful thing it often is. I pass by bungalow after bungalow, each in its own little paradise, and look upon the green lawn successfully defying an unkind climate, the islands of mingled foliage in profuse, confused beauty, the gay flower beds, the clean gravel paths with their trim borders, the grotto in a shady corner, where fern and moss mingle, all dripping as if from recent showers and make you feel cool in spite of all thermometers, and I say to myself, “Without the _Malee_ all this would not be.” Neither with the _Malee_ alone would this be, but something very different. I admit that. But is not this just one secret of the beneficent influence he has on us? Your “Scotch” gardener is altogether too good. He obliterates you—reduces you to a spectator. But keeping a _Malee_ draws you out, for he compels you to look after him, and if you are to look after him, you must know something about his art, and if you do not know, you must learn. So we Anglo-Indians are gardeners almost to a man, and spend many pure, happy hours with the pruning shears and the budding knife, and this we owe to the _Malee_. When I say you must look after him, I do not disparage his skill; he is neat handed and knows many things; but his taste is elementary. He has an eye for symmetry, and can take delight in squares and circles and parallel lines; but the more subtle beauties of unsymmetrical figures and curves which seem to obey no law are hid from him. He loves bright tints especially red and yellow, with a boy’s love for sugar; he cannot have too much of them; but he has no organ for perceiving harmony in colour, and so the want of it does not pain him. The chief avenue, however, by which the delights of a gardener’s life reach him is the sense of smell. He revels in sweet odours; but here, too, he seeks for strength rather than what we call delicacy. In short, the enjoyment which he finds in the tones of his native _tom-tom_ may be taken as typical of all his pleasures. I find however, that Peelajee understands the principles of toleration, and, recognising that he caters for my pleasure rather than his own, is quite willing to abandon his favourite yellow marigold and luscious jasmine for the _pooteena_ and the _beebeena_ and the _fullax_. But perhaps you do not know these flowers by their Indian names. We call them _petunia_, _verbena_, and _phlox_. This is, doubtless, another indication of our Aryan brotherhood.

Peelajee is industrious after the Oriental method—that is to say, he is always doing something, but is economical of energy rather than time. If there are more ways than one of doing a thing, he has an unerring instinct which guides him to choose the one that costs least trouble. He is a fatalist in philosophy, and this helps him too. For example, when he transplants a rose bush, he saves himself the trouble of digging very deep by breaking the root, for if the plant is to live it will live, and if it is to die it will die. Some plants live, he remarks, and some plants die. The second half of this aphorism is only too true. In fact, many of my best plants not only die, but suddenly and entirely disappear. If I question Peelajee, he denies that I ever had them, and treats me as a dreamer of dreams. I would not be uncharitable, but a little suspicion, like a mouse, lurks in the crevices of my mind that Peelajee surreptitiously carries on a small business as a seedsman and nursery gardener, and I know that in his simple mind he is so identified with his master that _meum_ and _tuum_ blend, as it were, into one. I am restrained from probing into the matter by a sensitiveness about certain other mysteries which may be bound up with this, and about which I have always suppressed my curiosity. For example, where do the beautiful flowers which decorate my table grow? Not altogether in my garden. So much I know: more than that I think it prudent not to know. For this reason, as I said, I forbear to make close scrutiny into what may be called the undercurrent of Peelajee’s operations, but I notice that he always has in hand large beds of cuttings from my best roses and crotons, and these flourish up to a certain point, after which I lose all trace of them. He says that an insidious caterpillar attacks their roots, so that they all grow black and wither away suddenly. I fall upon him and tell him that he is to blame. He protests that he cannot control underground caterpillars. He knows that I suspect, and I suspect that he knows, but a veil of dissimulation, however transparent, averts a crisis, so we fence for a time till he understands clearly that, when he propagates my plants, he must reserve a decent number for me.

Griffins and travelling M.P.s are liable to suppose that the _Malee_ is a gardener, and _ergo_ that you keep him to attend to your garden. This is an error. He is a gardener, of course, but the primary use of him is to produce flowers for your table, and you need him most when you have no garden. A high-class _Malee_ of good family and connections is quite independent of a garden. It seems necessary, however, that your neighbours should have gardens.

The highest branch of the _Malee’s_ art is the making of nosegays, from the little “buttonhole,” which is equivalent to a cough on occasions when _baksheesh_ seems possible, to the great valedictory or Christmas bouquet. The manner of making these is as follows. First you gather your flowers, cutting the stalks as short as possible, and tie each one firmly to an artificial stalk of thin bamboo. Then you select some large and striking flower for a centre, and range the rest round it in rings of beautiful colours. If your bull’s eye is a sunflower, then you may gird it with a broad belt of red roses. Yellow marigolds may follow, then another ring of red roses, then lilac bougainvillea, then something blue, after which you may have a circle of white jasmine, and so on. Finally, you fringe the whole with green leaves, bind it together with pack thread, and tie it to the end of a short stick. If the odour of rose, jasmine, chumpa, oleander, etc., is not sufficient, you can mix a good quantity of mignonette with the leaves on the outside, but, in any case, it is best to sprinkle the whole profusely with rose water. This will make a bouquet fit to present to a Commissioner.

[Picture: The highest style of art]

THE BHEESTEE.