Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

W >> William Eleroy Curtis >> Modern India

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

The lower floor of the house is commonly used for a shop, and
different lines of business are classified and gathered in the
same neighborhood. The food market, the grocery and provision
dealers, the dealers in cotton goods and other fabrics, the silk
merchants, the shoe and leather men, the workers in copper and
brass, the goldsmiths, jewelers and dealers in precious stones
each have their street or quarter, which is a great convenience
to purchasers, and scattered among them are frequent cook-shops
and eating places, which do not resemble our restaurants in any
way, but have a large patronage. A considerable portion of the
population of Bombay, and the same is true of all other Indian
cities, depends upon these cook-shops for food as a measure of
economy and convenience. People can send out for dinner, lunch,
or breakfast at any hour, and have it served by their own servants
without being troubled to keep up a kitchen or buy fuel.

There are said to be 6,000 dealers in jewelry and precious stones
in the city of Bombay, and they all seem to be doing a flourishing
business, chiefly with the natives, who are very fond of display
and invest their money in precious stones and personal adornments
of gold and silver, which are safer and give more satisfaction
than banks.

You can see specimens of every race and nation in the native
city, nearly always in their own distinctive costumes, and they
are the source of never-ending interest--Arabs, Persians, Afghans,
Rajputs, Parsees, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, Lascars, Negroes
from Zanzibar, Madagascar and the Congo, Abyssinians. Nubians,
Sikhs, Thibetans, Burmese, Singalese, Siamese and Bengalis mingle
with Jews, Greeks and Europeans on common terms, and, unlike the
population of most eastern cities, the people of Bombay always
seem to be busy.

Many enterprises usually left for the municipal authorities of a
city to carry on cannot be undertaken by the government of India
because of the laws of caste, religious customs and fanatical
prejudices of the people. The Hindu allows no man to enter his
home; the women of a Mohammedan household are kept in seclusion,
the teachings of the priests are contrary to modern sanitary
regulations, and if the municipal authorities should condemn
a block of buildings and tear it down, or discover a nuisance
and attempt to remove it, they might easily provoke a riot and
perhaps a revolution. This has happened frequently. During the
last plague a public tumult had to be quelled by soldiers at a
large cost of life because of the efforts of the government to
isolate and quarantine infected persons and houses. These peculiar
conditions suggested in Bombay the advantage of a semi-public body
called "The Improvement Trust," which was organized a few years
ago by Lord Sandhurst, then governor. The original object was to
clear out the slums and infected places after the last plague,
to tear down blocks of rotten and filthy tenement-houses and erect
new buildings on the ground; to widen the streets, to let air and
light into moldering, festering sink holes of poverty, vice and
wretchedness; to lay sewers and furnish a water supply, and to
redeem and regenerate certain portions of the city that were a
menace to the public health and morals. This work was intrusted
to twelve eminent citizens, representing each of the races and
all of the large interests in Bombay, who commanded the respect
and enjoyed the confidence of the fanatical element of the people,
and would be permitted to do many things and introduce innovations
that would not be tolerated if suggested by foreigners, or the
government.

After the special duty which they were organized to perform had
been accomplished The Improvement Trust was made permanent as a
useful agency to undertake works of public utility of a similar
character which the government could not carry on. The twelve
trustees serve without pay or allowances; not one of them receives
a penny of compensation for his time or trouble, or even the
reimbursement of incidental expenses made necessary in the
performance of his duties. This is an exhibition of unusual
patriotism, but it is considered perfectly natural in Bombay. To
carry out the plans of the Trust, salaried officials are employed,
and a large force is necessary. The trustees have assumed great
responsibilities, and supply the place of a board of public works,
with larger powers than are usually granted to such officials.
The municipality has turned over to them large tracts of real
estate, some of which has been improved with great profit; it has
secured funds by borrowing from banks upon the personal credit
of its members, and by issuing bonds which sell at a high premium,
and the money has been used in the improvement of the city, in
the introduction of sanitary reforms, in building model tenements
for the poor, in creating institutions of public necessity or
advantage and by serving the people in various other ways.

The street car system of Bombay belongs to an American company,
having been organized by a Mr. Kittridge, who came over here as
consul during President Lincoln's administration. Recognizing
the advantage of street cars, in 1874 he interested some American
capitalists in the enterprise, got a franchise, laid rails on
a few of the principal streets and has been running horse cars
ever since.

The introduction of electricity and the extension of the street
railway system is imperatively needed. Distances are very great
in the foreign section, and during the hot months, from March
to November, it is impossible for white men to walk in the sun,
so that everybody is compelled to keep or hire a carriage; while
on the other hand the density of the population in other sections
is so great as to be a continual and increasing public peril.
Bombay has more than 800,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are
packed into very narrow limits, and in the native quarters it
is estimated that there is one human being to every ten square
yards of space. It will be realized that this is a dangerous
condition of affairs for a city that is constantly afflicted
with epidemics and in which contagious diseases always prevail.
The extension of the street car service would do something to
relieve this congestion and scatter many of the people out among
the suburbs, but the Orientals always swarm together and pack
themselves away in most uncomfortable and unhealthful limits,
and it will always be a great danger when the plagues or the
cholera come around. Multitudes have no homes at all. They have
no property except the one or two strips of dirty cotton which
the police require them to wear for clothing. They lie down to
sleep anywhere, in the parks, on the sidewalks, in hallways,
and drawing their robes over their faces are utterly indifferent
to what happens. They get their meals at the cook shops for a
few farthings, eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are
sleepy and go through life without a fixed abode.

In addition to the street car company the United States is
represented by the Standard Oil Company, the Vacuum Oil Company,
and the New York Export and Import Company. Other American firms
of merchants and manufacturers have resident agents, but they
are mostly Englishmen or Germans.

There is, however, very little demand in India for agricultural
implements, although three-fourths of the people are employed in
tilling the soil. Each farmer owns or rents a very small piece
of ground, hardly big enough to justify the use of anything but
the simple, primitive tools that have been handed down to him
through long lines of ancestors for 3,000 years. Nearly all his
implements are home-made, or come from the village blacksmith
shop, and are of the rudest, most awkward description. They plow
with a crooked stick, they dig ditches with their fingers, and
carry everything that has to be moved in little baskets on their
heads. The harvesting is done with a primitive-looking sickle,
and root crops are taken out of the ground with a two-tined fork
with a handle only a foot long. The Hindu does everything in a
squatting posture, hence he uses only short-handled tools. Fifty
or seventy-five cents each would easily replace the outfit of
three-fourths of the farmers in the empire. Occasionally there
is a rajah with large estates under cultivation upon which modern
machinery is used, but even there its introduction is discouraged;
first, because the natives are very conservative and disinclined
to adopt new means and new methods; and, second, and what is
more important, every labor-saving implement and machine that
comes into the country deprives hundreds of poor coolies of
employment.

The development of the material resources of India is slowly going
on, and mechanical industries are being gradually established,
with the encouragement of the government, for the purpose of
attracting the surplus labor from the farms and villages and
employing it in factories and mills, and in the mines of southern
India, which are supposed to be very rich. These enterprises
offer limited possibilities for the sale of machinery, and
American-made machines are recognized as superior to all others.
There is also a demand for everything that can be used by the foreign
population, which in India is numbered somewhere about a million
people, but the trade is controlled largely by British merchants
who have life-long connections at home, and it is difficult to
remove their prejudices or persuade them to see the superiority
of American goods. Nevertheless, our manufactories, on their
merits, are gradually getting a footing in the market.

When Mark Twain was in Bombay, a few years ago, he met with an
unusual experience for a mortal. He was a guest of the late Mr.
Tata, a famous Parsee merchant, and received a great deal of
attention. All the foreigners in the city knew him, and had read
his books, and there are in Bombay hundreds of highly cultivated
and educated natives. He hired a servant, as every stranger does,
and was delighted when he discovered a native by the name of
Satan among the numerous applicants. He engaged him instantly
on his name; no other recommendation was necessary. To have a
servant by the name of Satan was a privilege no humorist had
ever before enjoyed, and the possibilities to his imagination
were without limit. And it so happened that on the very day Satan
was employed, Prince Aga Khan, the head of a Persian sect of
Mohammedans, who is supposed to have a divine origin and will
be worshiped as a god when he dies, came to call on Mr. Clemens.
Satan was in attendance, and when he appeared with the card upon
a tray, Mr. Clemens asked if he knew anything about the caller;
if he could give him some idea who he was, because, when a prince
calls in person upon an American tourist, it is considered a
distinguished honor. Aga Khan is well known to everybody in Bombay,
and one of the most conspicuous men in the city. He is a great
favorite in the foreign colony, and is as able a scholar as he
is a charming gentleman. Satan, with all the reverence of his
race, appreciated the religious aspect of the visitor more highly
than any other, and in reply to the question of his new master
explained that Aga Khan was a god.

It was a very gratifying meeting for both gentlemen, who found
each other entirely congenial. Aga Khan has a keen sense of humor
and had read everything Mark Twain had written, while, on the other
hand, the latter was distinctly impressed with the personality of
his caller. That evening, when he came down to dinner, his host
asked how he had passed the day:

"I have had the time of my life," was the prompt reply, "and
the greatest honor I have ever experienced. I have hired Satan
for a servant, and a God called to tell me how much he liked
Huck Finn."

III

SERVANTS, HOTELS AND CAVE TEMPLES

Everybody who comes to India must have a personal servant, a
native who performs the duty of valet, waiter and errand boy and
does other things that he is told. It is said to be impossible
to do without one and I am inclined to think that is true, for it
is a fixed custom of the country, and when a stranger attempts
to resist, or avoid or reform the customs of a country his trouble
begins. Many of the Indian hotels expect guests to bring their own
servants--to furnish their own chambermaids and waiters--hence are
short-handed, and the traveler who hasn't provided himself with
that indispensable piece of baggage has to look after himself.
On the railways a native servant is even more important, for
travelers are required to carry their own bedding, make their
own beds and furnish their own towels. The company provides a
bench for them to sleep on, similar to those we have in freight
cabooses at home, a wash room and sometimes water. But if you
want to wash your face and hands in the morning it is always
better to send your servant to the station master before the
trains starts to see that the tank is filled. Then a naked Hindu
with a goat-skin of water comes along, fills the tank and stands
around touching his forehead respectfully every time you look
his way until you give him a penny. The eating houses along the
railway lines also expect travelers to bring their own servants,
who raid their shelves and tables for food and drink and take it
out to the cars. That is another of the customs of the country.

For these reasons a special occupation has been created, peculiar
to India--that of travelers' servants, or "bearers" as they are
called. I have never been able to satisfy myself as to the derivation
of the name. Some wise men say that formerly, before the days of
railroads, people were carried about in sedan chairs, as they
are still in China, and the men who carried them were called
"bearers;" others contend that the name is due to the circumstance
that these servants bear the white man's burden, which is not at
all likely. They certainly do not bear his baggage. They hire
coolies to do it. A self-respecting "bearer" will employ somebody
at your expense to do everything he can avoid doing and will
never demean himself by carrying a trunk, or a bag, or even a
parcel. You give him money to pay incidental expenses, for you
don't want him bothering you all the time, and he hires other
natives to do the work. But his wages are small. A first-class
bearer, who can talk English and cook, pack trunks, look after
tickets, luggage and other business of travel, serve as guide
at all places of interest and compel merchants to pay him a
commission upon everything his employer purchases, can be obtained
for forty-five rupees, which is $15 a month, and keep himself.
He gets his board for nothing at the hotels for waiting on his
master, and on the pretext that he induced him to come there.
But you have to pay his railway fare, third class, and give him
$3 to buy warm clothing. He never buys it, because he does not
need it, but that's another custom of the country. Then again,
at the end of the engagement he expects a present--a little
backsheesh--two or three dollars, and a certificate that you are
pleased with his services.

That is the cost of the highest priced man, who can be guide
as well as servant, but you can get "bearers" with lesser
accomplishments for almost any wages, down as low as $2 a month.
But they are not only worthless; they actually imperil your soul
because of their exasperating ways and general cussedness. You
often hear that servants are cheap in India, that families pay
their cooks $3 a month and their housemen $2, which is true;
but they do not earn any more. One Swede girl will do as much
work as a dozen Hindus, and do it much better than they, and,
what is even more important to the housewife, can be relied upon.
In India women never go out to service except as nurses, but
in every household you will find not less than seven or eight
men servants, and sometimes twenty, who receive from $1 to $5
a month each in wages, but the total amounts up, and they have
to be fed, and they will steal, every one of them, and lie and
loaf, and cause an infinite amount of trouble and confusion,
simply because they are cheap. High-priced servants usually are
an economy--good things always cost money, but give better
satisfaction.

Another common mistake is that Indian hotel prices are low. They are
just as high as anywhere else in the world for the accommodations.
I have noticed that wherever you go the same amount of luxury and
comfort costs about the same amount of money. You pay for all
you get in an Indian hotel. The service is bad because travelers
are expected to bring their own servants to answer their calls,
to look after their rooms and make their beds, and in some places
to wait on them in the dining-room. There are no women about the
houses. Men do everything, and if they have been well trained as
cleaners the hotel is neat. If they have been badly trained the
contrary may be expected. The same may be said of the cooking.
The landlord and his guest are entirely at the mercy of the cook,
and the food is prepared according to his ability and education.
You get very little beef because cows are sacred and steers are
too valuable to kill. The mutton is excellent, and there is plenty
of it. You cannot get better anywhere, and at places near the
sea they serve an abundance of fish. Vegetables are plenty and
are usually well cooked. The coffee is poor and almost everybody
drinks tea. You seldom sit down to a hotel table in India without
finding chickens cooked in a palatable way for breakfast, lunch
and dinner, and eggs are equally good and plenty. The bread is
usually bad, and everybody calls for toast. The deserts are usually
quite good.

It takes a stranger some time to become accustomed to barefooted
servants, but few of the natives in India of whatever class wear
shoes. Rich people, business men, merchants, bankers and others
who come in contact on equal terms with the foreign population
usually wear them in the streets, but kick them off and go around
barefooted as soon as they reach their own offices or their homes.
Although a servant may be dressed in elaborate livery, he never
wears shoes. The butlers, footmen, ushers and other servants
at the government house in Calcutta, at the viceregal lodge at
Simla, at the palace of the governor of Bombay, and the residences
of the other high officials, are all barefooted.

Everybody with experience agrees that well-trained Hindu servants
are quick, attentive and respectful and ingenious. F. Marion
Crawford in "Mr. Isaacs" says: "It has always been a mystery
to me how native servants manage always to turn up at the right
moment. You say to your man, 'Go there and wait for me,' and you
arrive and find him waiting; though how he transferred himself
thither, with his queer-looking bundle, and his lota and cooking
utensils and your best teapot wrapped up in a newspaper and ready
for use, and with all the hundred and one things that a native
servant contrives to carry about without breaking or losing one of
them, is an unsolved puzzle. Yet there he is, clean and grinning
as ever, and if he were not clean and grinning and provided with
tea and cheroots, you would not keep him in your service a day,
though you would be incapable of looking half so spotless and
pleased under the same circumstances yourself."

Every upper servant in an Indian household has to have an under
servant to assist him. A butler will not wash dishes or dust or
sweep. He will go to market and wait on the table, but nothing
more. A cook must have a coolie to wash the kitchen utensils,
and wait on him. He will do nothing but prepare the food for
the table. A coachman will do nothing but drive. He must have
a coolie to take care of the horse, and if there are two horses
the owner must hire another stable man, for no Hindu hostler
can take care of more than one, at least he is not willing to
do so. An American friend has told me of his experience trying
to break down one of the customs of the East, and compelling
one native to groom two horses. It is too long and tearful to
relate here, for he was finally compelled to give in and hire
a man for every horse and prove the truth of Kipling's poem:

"It is not good for the Christian race
To worry the Aryan brown;
For the white man riles,
And the brown man smiles,
And it weareth the Christian down
And the end of the fight
Is a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph clear:
A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."

That's the fate of everybody who goes up against established customs.
And so we hired a "bearer."

There were plenty of candidates. They appeared in swarms before
our trunks had come up from the steamer, and continued to come by
ones and twos until we had made a selection. They camped outside
our rooms and watched every movement we made. They sprang up in
our way from behind columns and gate-posts whenever we left the
hotel or returned to it. They accosted us in the street with
insinuating smiles and politely opened the carriage door as we
returned from our drives. They were of all sizes and ages, castes
and religions, and, strange to say, most of them had become
Christians and Protestants from their strong desire to please.
Each had a bunch of "chits," as they call them--recommendations
from previous employers, testifying to their intelligence, honesty
and fidelity, and insisted upon our reading them. Finally, in
self-defense, we engaged a stalwart Mohammedan wearing a snow-white
robe, a monstrous turban and a big bushy beard. He is an imposing
spectacle; he moves like an emperor; his poses are as dignified
as those of the Sheik el Islam when he lifts his hands to bestow
a blessing. And we engaged Ram Zon Abdullet Mutmammet on his
shape.

It was a mistake. Beauty is skin deep. No one can judge merit by
outside appearances, as many persons can ascertain by glancing
in a mirror. Ram Zon, and that was what we called him for short,
was a splendid illusion. It turned out that he could not scrape
together enough English to keep an account of his expenditures
and had to trust to his memory, which is very defective in money
matters. He cannot read or write, he cannot carry a message or
receive one; he is no use as a guide, for, although information
and ideas may be bulging from his noble brow, he lacks the power
to communicate them, and, worse than all, he is surly, lazy and
a constitutional kicker. He was always hanging around when we
didn't want him, and when we did want him he was never to be
found.

Ram had not been engaged two hours before he appeared in our
sitting room, enveloped in a dignity that permeated the entire
hotel, stood erect like a soldier, brought his hand to his forehead
and held it there for a long time--the salute of great respect--and
gave me a sealed note, which I opened and found to read as follows:

"Most Honored Sir:--I most humbly beg to inform you this to your
kind consideration and generousitee and trusting which will submit
myself to your grant benevolence for avoid the troublesomeness to
you and your families, that the servant Ram Zon you have been so
honorable and benovelent to engage is a great rogue and conjurer.
He will make your mind buzzling and will steal your properties,
and can run away with you midway. In proof you please touch his
right hand shoulder and see what and how big charm he has. Such
a bad temperature man you have in your service. Besides he only
grown up taller and looks like a dandee as it true but he is
not fit to act in case not to disappeared. I beg of you kindly
consult about those matters and select and choose much experienced
man than him otherwise certainly you could be put in to great
danger by his conjuring and into troubles.

"Hoping to excuse me for this troubles I taking, though he is my
caste and countryman much like not to do so, but his temperature
is not good therefore liable to your honourablesness, etc., etc."

When I told Ram about this indictment, he stoutly denied the
charges, saying that it was customary for envious "bearers" to
say bad things of one another when they lost good jobs. We did not
feel of his right arm and he did not try to conjure us, but his
temperature is certainly very bad, and he soon became a nuisance,
which we abated by paying him a month's wages and sending him off.
Then, upon the recommendation of the consul we got a treasure,
although he does not show it in his looks.

The hotels of India have a very bad name. There are several good
ones in the empire, however, and every experienced traveler and
every clubman you meet can tell you the names of all of them.
Hence it is not impossible to keep a good hotel in India with
profit. The best are at Lucknow and Darjeeling. Those at Caucutta
are the worst, although one would think that the vice-regal capital
would have pride enough to entertain its many visitors decently.

Bombay at last has such a hotel as ought to be found in Calcutta
and all the other large cities, an architectural monument, and
an ornament to the country. It is due to the enterprise of the
late Mr. J. N. Tata, a Parsee merchant and manufacturer, and it
is to be hoped that its success will be sufficient to stimulate
similar enterprises elsewhere. It would be much better for the people
of India to coax tourists over here by offering them comforts,
luxuries and pleasures than to allow the few who do come, to go
away grumbling. The thousands who visit Cairo every winter are
attracted there by the hotels, for no city has better ones, and
no hotels give more for the money. Hence they pay big profits,
and are a source of prosperity to the city, as well as a pleasure
to the idle public.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33