CHAPTER IV

AHMEDABAD TO AJMIR

The railway station at Ahmedabad has the unusual distinction of two striking minarets of brick-work, richly cut and moulded in successive circular tiers, which rise to a considerable height from amid the palms and plantains of a small well-watered Eastern garden, with many straight-cut paths between the thickly planted trees. These are the remains of a Mohammedan mosque which once stood there. It is an unusually interesting and pleasant place to wander in while waiting for a train.

Our bearer secured a comfortable coupé for our journey to Ajmir, which was to be our next halting-place. We had originally intended to visit Mount Abu to see the wonderful Jain temples of Delwara, but before we reached the Abu road heavy rain came on, and as it would have meant a pony ride of sixteen miles from the station to Mount Abu, we decided to go on to Ajmir without a break.

Leaving Ahmedabad at 8.15 we breakfasted in the train, there being a restaurant car put on. The trains not being corridor trains it is necessary to get out at the stopping stations and find one’s way to the car and back to one’s carriage again.

The country at first was very flat and generally cultivated, but with occasional belts of jungle, where monkeys and peacocks were seen. Fine banyan and acacia trees here and there. Ploughing with oxen was going on, and the yoke of oxen drawing at the irrigation wells was a frequent sight.

About the middle of the day dark clouds rolled up and we had a heavy shower with promise of more to come. Mountains came into view at the same time as the change in the weather, and it was not long before we reached Abu Road Station. The fine mountain range on the left of the line amid which Mount Abu was situated was veiled in cloud and rain, but as we left the mountains the sky cleared again, and we entered a flat, desert-like region covered with stunted trees or dry scrub bush, stretching for miles. A strange-looking country was afterwards traversed, where huge granite boulders lay on the earth like mounds and partly overgrown, others might have been imagined to be the shells of gigantic tortoises. At a station called Mori this characteristic was the most striking. The stations on this line through Rajpootana were built after the Moslem fashion and had a superficial resemblance to mosques, being domed, the smaller buildings and wayside signal huts being treated in the same manner.

After a rainy sunset of orange and grey, darkness soon fell, and it was not long before we reached Ajmir after about twelve hours’ travel—a distance of over three hundred miles. We found fairly comfortable quarters at the station refreshment-rooms, the bedrooms being above and opening on to spacious terraces from which interesting views of the town and country could be had. The only drawbacks were the noises. What with the shrieks of the engines, and the perpetual conversazione carried on on the platforms, which were generally thronged with most picturesque crowds of natives, sleep was very broken.

Ajmir is very beautifully situated, with a fine background of hills, the town itself being on a slope with an old fort crowning a height immediately above it. There is a large military station, the cantonments with the residency and the English bungalows lying on a plain quite away from the native town.

We hired a carriage and drove around the town the morning after our arrival, visiting the old palace and massive fortress built by the Emperor Akbar, who has left so many noble buildings in the north-west of India to testify to his power and influence in the past. We entered through a noble gateway into a large quadrangle surrounded by tremendously high, thick walls and having octagonal bastions at four corners. A pavilion rose in the centre of the court, raised upon a platform led up to by steps of marble. Extensive restorations were being carried on under the Indian Government, so much so that one had fears they were in danger of going too far in the direction of renewal, and did not draw the line with sufficient decision at the limits of preservation and repair. Certainly new work was being put in freely. It was interesting, however, to see that most beautiful and characteristic Indian craft of piercing patterns in marble being carried on. The native carver, turbaned and grey-bearded, was squatting on the ground busy with a small marble grill or screen. He was drilling a geometric diaper pattern through a panel of marble which had a worked moulding for frame. The slab was bedded in clay to keep it from under the worker’s hands, and to prevent splitting. When the holes were drilled he finished the work with chisels and mallet, working out the different bevels and facets of the quatre-foils, and putting in the work that which gave all the richness and the effect of the pattern. He seemed pleased to have his work noticed, and anxious that we should see it in its finished state he went to where a group of native women were at work on other similar grills which had left the carver’s hands, cleaning the pierced patterns from the clay, and showed the completed panels clear cut in the white marble. It was noticeable that the women only did the cleaning and polishing up, but not the carving.

We had a fine view from the ramparts and minarets of the pavilion.

From the fort we went on driving through the bazaars of Ajmir, which were highly interesting but less busy and crowded, perhaps, than at Ahmedabad. Gay coloured cottons and muslins, embroidered slippers, pottery, and grain of all kinds were mostly in evidence, the latter arranged in heaps on cloths spread on the ground in front of the shops, and measured out by the traders squatting by their merchandise. The fronts of the native houses here were mostly in white plaster, often painted with designs in blue and yellow of formal flowers in vases, or quaint animals and figures in profile. There was much fancy and variety in the design of the little arcaded projecting balconies corbelled out from the wall, and ogee arched windows, and moulded plaster and painted ornament.

We presently, at the end of the principal street, approached the magnificent double gateway of the famous Dargah—named the Dilkasha (or “heart-expanding”) gate. From the street one really sees three ogee arches of different heights in succession, one beyond the other, the highest being flanked by towering minarets crowned with cupolas. The whole gateway in the bright morning sunlight looked a fairy-like aerial structure, fair and white, and glittering here and there with gold, and tile patterns in blue and yellow.

The Dargah of Ajmir is revered as the burial-place of one Kwaja Sahib, a saint of the thirteenth century. His beautiful white and gold domed shrine enclosing his silver tomb occupies the centre of the inner court, and is visited by troops of pilgrims. A great festival is held in honour of the saint every year, when Ajmir is thronged with pilgrims. Two enormous iron pots are shown, standing each side the entrance to the Dargah, in which at the festival are cooked tons of food freely given to the pilgrims. The biggest pot is reputed to hold no less than 10,000 lbs. of food. The food consists of mess of rice, oil, sugar, raisins, and almonds, which is rather suggestive of a sort of plum pudding, and on this scale costs about £100.

On first entering the Dargah through the great gateway one sees a large paved court with several domed tombs and a mosque, and rising high the old fort of Tarrgarh, white-walled on the brown hill, is seen above. I noted a very fine bronze many-branched candelabra on one of the domed tombs. Passing through this court the second court is entered where stands the shrine. It is surrounded by a low marble balustrade, and is picturesquely overshadowed by a large ancient ilex tree, through the spreading branches of which with their masses of rich dark foliage glows the colour and gold of the richly decorated shrine. Through the open doors gleam the silver of the tomb, and the ivory-like dome fretted and crested with gold sparkling in the full light of the sun pierces the deep blue sky. Curious low tapering pedestals with small cupolas at the top are placed about the courts and around the shrine at intervals. These are pierced with small recesses, in which, on festival occasions, small lamps are placed. Beyond the shrine we come out upon a high-walled terrace which extends with a succession of bays along the sides of a deep narrow tank, flights of steps leading down to the water’s edge at different points.

It is the custom when visitors leave the Dargah for the attendants to hang garlands of flowers about their necks, and in return for this graceful attention an offering to the shrine—or to its hangers on—is expected.

The visitor is, however, rather carefully watched inside the Dargah. The shrine itself is not allowed to be entered. Shoes must be removed on entering the court, or the big canvas shoes put on over them. On sketching intent I was not allowed to pitch a camp stool near the shrine or in the sacred precincts, and even open umbrellas, for shade, were objected to by these jealous watchful devotees.

From the Dargah we went to see the roofless mosque of “Arhai-din-ka-Jhonpra,” which being interpreted signifies “The house of two and a half days.” It is on the hill opposite the fort, but on the lower slope, and is approached through narrow streets, and finally reached by a steep flight of steps which lead to the gateway of the court of the mosque. It is now little more than a beautiful red sandstone carved screen of open pointed arches, but the detail is exceedingly rich and happy in scale, and largely consists of bordering inscriptions outlining the arches and their rectangular framings, the texts being in both Cufic and Togra characters, and both these and the surface decoration generally are delicately but sharply cut in sunk carving, which preserves a certain unity of ornamental effect. Arranged along the side of the court are many carved fragments which are the remains of the Jain Temple, transformed into the Mussulman Mosque in the year 1236 by Altamash, who conquered the city, and was said to have effected the transformation in two and a half days.

The mosque was not used for worship. In the court a rope or cord maker was at work. The white strands stretched over canes from the man working at one end of the walk to where at the other end his assistant sat at a sort of wheel by means of which the strands were twisted into a cord of the required thickness.

After this we drove to the Daulat Bagh (Garden of splendour)—then passing through a beautiful park full of pine-trees we came to the white marble pavilion built by Shah Jehan, standing on a marble balustraded terrace, and overlooking a lovely lake, bounded by mountains—a lovely spot. The pavilion has been restored by the Indian government, and looks quite new. Marble, however, does not seem to weather or discolour in the Indian climate, and the difference between new and old is not nearly so marked as in European countries, while the imitative faculty of the Hindu workman and the traditions of craftsmanship under which he still works help to complete the illusion when restoration is done. New or old, it was an enchanting place, especially when the evening sun floods the whole scene with golden light, streaming through the trees, and filling the marble porticoes with warm colour. The lake still as a mirror, reflecting the fairy palace and the dreamy distance in its glassy surface. The chief commissioner should be happy to have his residence in the midst of this lovely garden. The lake is as useful too as it is beautiful, as from it is obtained the water supply of Ajmir.

Another of our evening drives was through the cantonments outside the native city. We passed through the English military quarters, and saw the long low barrack-like bungalows of the soldiers, clean and neat, but bare and ugly. There were more comfortable bungalows of the officers and other English residents in gardens and amid trees, with entrance gates and drives, almost suburban, allowing for little differences in detail. The names of the residents, for instance, were painted in white block-letters on ugly black boards placed outside the gates of the gardens. There was the usual club house in a landscape garden, and here a military band of native infantry was playing, conducted by a man in a straw hat. English ladies, and children with their native aejahs and bearers scattered about the lawns.

On the road a little distance from the town a large number of natives were busy making up the road over a new bridge across the railway. Many of these coolies were very attenuated, and might have come from the famine districts.

Passing through the bazaar on my return from sketching in the Dargah, I noticed among the stalls of a crowded and picturesque native street a craftsman at work putting a border pattern upon the edge of a piece of orange-coloured muslin. He first printed or stamped the border, a small leaf and flower pattern, from a wood block with some sort of size of a brown colour, and when this was sufficiently “tacky” he laid on silver leaf over the pattern thus defined by the block in size, and finished by brushing away the superfluous leaf with a soft brush, much as our gilders do.

A quaint effect was produced by the camels here, laden with great sheafs of sugar-cane, which trailed behind, spreading out over their hind quarters in a way that suggested skirts or a crinoline—viewed from behind.

From our terrace over the railway station we could observe the varied groups of natives which continually thronged the platforms and the yards outside. Certainly the native in India makes constant use of the railways, although the railways do not take any trouble to make them comfortable. The native carriages seem always in an overcrowded state, and many of them are rather suggestive of cattle trucks with rough wooden partitions. Troups of natives will come to a railway station and camp all night waiting for some train in the morning. On inquiring what classes or manner of people these poor travellers mostly were, I was told that they comprised chiefly pilgrims to various shrines and festivals in different parts of the country, and small traders. The Ryot, or agriculturist, did not travel much, as might be supposed. The people usually bore great bundles with them, bedding presumably, and other necessaries for long journeys. These the women carried upon their heads. In the evenings groups of natives would be seen gathered round fires made on the ground. These were often mere flares of straw, and did not last very long, though they may have served to mitigate the chill of the nightfall, which is always so sudden in India.

As evidence of the extraordinary variety of colour arrangements in the costume of the natives in the bazaars, here are a few notes made of the colours worn by passers-by, both men and women, at Ajmir observed in the course of a few minutes.

1. Citron tunic, emerald green turban, white trousers.

2. Buff turban black tunic, white trousers.

3. (Woman.) Large vermilion cloak, pink skirt.

4. Pea green turban, crimson velvet tunic, white trousers.

5. Orange turban, black tunic, white trousers.

6. White turban, wound round a red fez, deep brown orange cloak thrown over brown jacket and white breeches.

7. Orange muslin simply covering head and body, scarlet trousers. (Mohammedan woman.)

8. Turquoise turban, golden orange tunic (long) lined with pale yellow.

The agricultural country folks generally wore white, though it was rather a dusky white. Groups of herdsmen were occasionally seen with long straight wands, their dark faces and bare limbs emerging from white cotton turbans, tunics and cloaks.

Travellers in India as well as English residents are often greeted with salaams in the native bazaars and passers-by on the road. The word “salaam” is pronounced by natives sometimes in a tone almost of command, but as far as I could understand it was intended to suggest a mutual exchange of salutations, or even the word alone might be taken as a salutation sometimes; but it is always expected that an answering salute of some kind will be given, but it is said that one should never salute with the left hand if it is wished to avoid offence. The ordinary mode of salutation in any country should be carefully observed, as in no way can offence be more easily given, however inadvertently, by any apparent neglect of what are considered the ordinary courtesies of life sanctioned by the customs of a country.

It is true that the native children seemed sometimes inclined to mock at a stranger, in a spirit of monkey mischief, perhaps, but there are little street gamins in any city, and the latest product of our civilisation, the London street arab, would be difficult to beat anywhere, East or West.