Hindoo Holiday (29 page)

Captain Daly and Miss Trend have gone, and as the Dewan did not make his usual visit to the encampment, where I now reign alone, I went down to his house in the evening to call on him. He was not in, but I soon espied him a little distance away, perched on a high wooden platform. The platform was reached by steps, and a large canvas umbrella shaded the Dewan from the heat of the sun. In front of him was a rough table bearing a black tin box, some books and papers.

But he was not reading or writing; he was sitting quite motionless with a string of beads in his hands. Directly he saw me, however, he heaved his enormous bulk out of the chair and came waddling to the top of the steps to welcome me.

“Come up, Mr. Ackerley, come up! How kind of you! Very pleased!”

He seemed delighted. We talked a little of the Prince's illness, and the Dewan said that Devi was his family Goddess, but that his private God was Mahadeo (the Great God) or Siva.

Siva has numerous forms, but is chiefly worshipped in one shape, the phallic symbol of generative and creative power—plain upright stones called
lingams
which are scattered all over India. But the Dewan said he did not worship the
lingam
, because he did not believe in Mahadeo or in any God, only in an idea of Duty and doing good to others. He saw me looking at his beads on the table and said yes, that might appear to be an inconsistency, but that when he told them, as he frequently did when he was worried or had nothing to do, he was not thinking of God, but repeating a familiar formula which he found soothing and tranquillizing. His Highness, he said, also carried beads which he told, usually when he was returning from a journey, and it displeased him to be interrupted whilst doing so. We passed from that to talk of friendship, which, he thought, was essentially a youthful affair. There had to be passion in friendship—though not necessarily sexual: and only boys were capable of that passion and enthusiasm. He himself had had that passion in his youth, and the friend he had then made was a staunch friend still.

“I was quite attractive when I was a boy,” he said, “but no one could find anything attractive in me now.”

But his greatest alliance was and always had been with his brother.

“We are as one,” he said, “and if he dies I do not care to live.”

But he was slow now to make friends, slow and shy. He had wanted to be friends with me, but had perceived a similar reserve in myself. That was why we had not got on well together, and perhaps never would.

I said I feared that there had been other reasons that had kept us apart—that he had looked upon me as an intruder and a busybody; and he agreed that he had been afraid that I would interfere, but that it was clear now that I had no inclination to do so, and he thanked me for that.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Ackerley? I am anxious to do something for you, here or in Chhokrapur.”

He was glad that we were now friends. He had always felt that we should be; that he had more in common with me than with Captain Daly, but:

“I am like a maiden,” he said shyly, “I have to be wooed.”

It is getting appreciably warmer every day. After returning at about eight o'clock from my morning's ride I seldom go out again until five in the afternoon, but sit in my tent and write or read in a state of continual perspiration. Yesterday the sky became heavily overcast, and a strong warm wind began to blow. It has been blowing ever since, and brings with it occasional tornadoes, miniature no doubt, but of a very exasperating disposition. While I sit and sweat, a sudden boisterous swishing is heard in the surrounding jungle, and like a wild thing, a whirling funnel of wind arrives in the encampment and gyrates furiously in front of my tent.

It does this in order to suck into itself all the dust and dead leaves in the vicinity, and when it has got as much as it can hold, it makes a dash for my tent and whirls explosively through it, taking all my personal belongings out through the opposite flap and leaving all its dust and dead leaves behind. Wishing that I had a thousand arms like the Goddess Devi, I snatch at my vanishing possessions, trying to save something out of the wreck.

This has happened three times in the last few hours, and I am beginning to read purpose into the way in which these whirlwinds make again and again for my tent, and find myself agreeing with the villagers, who believe them to be devils and stand in great awe of them.

Yesterday evening I saw as much of the Queen as I suppose I shall ever see. She was on her way, in procession and on foot, to one of the temples to pray for her son's recovery. But she was not visible, of course. She was walking within a canopy of red curtains, carried on poles on the shoulders of four men, preceded by musicians and followed by her women attendants.

If a temple has been desecrated one may enter it without taking off one's shoes. But the Dewan says he never removes his shoes whether temples have been desecrated or not. He says, “My good fellow, if you wish me to take off my shoes, I shall not enter your temple.” Then they admit him, for they like having their temples visited. But of course if a temple is actually being used, he added, he does not try to enter it at all.

I told Narayan that I did not think his mustache suited him very well, and that he should cut it off; but he said that it was an Indian rule that a Hindoo boy must not shave his upper lip until after his father's death.

This afternoon I was again sitting outside the Palace waiting for Babaji Rao, who had gone in to speak to the Dewan. He eventually reappeared, accompanied by the Dewan, the doctor, and an aged priest.

“Has the Raja been given his medicine and a bath?” I heard the Dewan ask the doctor.

“No,” said the doctor.

“Why not?”

“Her Highness and the priests did not wish these things to be done.”

“But they must be done!” cried the Dewan. “I
told
you to do them. Let them be done at once!” He then turned to the priest. “The child has not got smallpox.” The old man shook his head mournfully. “I say it has
not
got smallpox. We have taken it to be smallpox for the sake of convenience, but it has
not
got smallpox and it must be given medicine and a bath!”

He threatened the doctor with mock severity with his stick.

“If you do not obey my orders I shall beat you!” he said.

“Does your authority extend even to the medical department, Dewan Sahib?” I asked, amused.

“It extends everywhere,” he replied briefly.

Continuing about himself, as he accompanied Babaji Rao and me towards the officers' quarters, the Dewan said that he has a great ability to dismiss things from his mind. He can give an order and, turning to other business, forget all about it until the moment for its operation arrives. Then he remembers it. Even personal troubles can be treated in this way.

“If they can be solved, then solve them and forget about them; but if they cannot be solved, then—forget about them.”

So at the end of a day he puts everything out of his mind and plays bridge. He loves bridge and never misses his evening's rubber—with the doctor as partner, of course.

“On only one occasion have I missed my game, and that was when twelve prisoners escaped from the jail. I did not play cards that evening. I wanted to play, but I thought it was my duty not to at such a serious moment.”

So he pulls along very well with himself. And he pulls along very well with His Highness too.

Before doing the smallest thing he always asks His Highness's permission, and His Highness always gives it.

“My orders are seldom interfered with; but if His Highness says to me: ‘I am thinking of upsetting this order of yours, Dewan. What do you think?' Then I look at the order and say, ‘Of course, upset it by all means.'”

He said that His Highness was a very clever man; that he set great store on truth and frankness, so that one must always speak one's mind to him and never carry tales to him about other people, for he had an uncomfortable habit of confronting one with the subject of one's story. I thought this statement difficult to reconcile with the treatment of Narayan; but I did not say so.

“He often makes himself appear to be a fool,” concluded the Dewan; “it is a policy of his; but do not be taken in by it. He knows everything that happens. You may be sure, for instance, that he knows very well that you are walking with Babaji Rao and me at this moment.” I was amused at his self-confidence, for His Highness has recently been considering his dismissal from the Dewanship and has been discussing the matter with me.

It appears that the Dewan is demanding an increase in salary, and His Highness is put out over it and wants to be rid of him.

“He talks too much,” observed the little man peevishly.

But almost as though he perceived what was passing through my mind, the Dewan began himself to discuss this very question. He said he was not a rich man; that besides his salary of a thousand rupees a month, he had a private income of only four thousand rupees a year; but that it was, nevertheless, more money than he needed.

“I have so much money that I do not know what to do with it. What to do? What to do? I do not know. Yet I want more and more.”

He likened himself, unconvincingly I thought, to the mendicant who did not rise to his feet when Alexander the Great rode past.

“Why do you not rise when the Emperor passes?” asked Alexander, more amused than angry.

“Why should I rise? I am an Emperor myself.”

“An Emperor, eh? Then where is your army?”

“Where, on the other hand, are my enemies?”

“Well, your treasury—where is that?”

“Where are my needs?”

Similarly, the Dewan said, he had few needs, and the salary he drew was far more than he required. For his first six years as Dewan he had drawn only half that—five hundred rupees—and even that with his private income had been more than he could use. But at the end of the six years, his contract expiring, he had felt that he was entitled to more although he did not require it, and had demanded an increase to a thousand rupees, which had been refused. So he had tendered his resignation, which had been accepted.

His Highness had then submitted to him a list of names, and asked him to nominate his own successor, and he had complied honestly with this request, but had prophesied at the same time that the nominee would not give as much satisfaction as he himself had given, and that sooner or later he would be recalled.

He had then returned to his Lucknow home and reverted to his literary work.

And nine months later His Highness had recalled him as he had foretold. Then, unhappily, he had not wanted to move; he takes root easily and does not like being disturbed, and he had expressed this disinclination to His Highness, but had added that should His Highness
command
him to return he should consider himself as having no choice in the matter. The command had been given, and he had returned to Chhokrapur to resume his duties as Dewan, on a three years' contract at a thousand rupees a month. But now the three years have passed, and he has told His Highness that if he is required to contract for another term of office he must have fifteen hundred rupees a month.

“I do not need it,” he cried, “but I am worth it, and therefore I must have it.”

Again he has been refused; again he has sent in his resignation; again about ten new candidates for the Dewanship have been called, and again the Dewan has been asked to nominate his successor.

But this time he has replied: “They are none of them of any use; no one can replace me. If Your Highness calls God himself I shall advise you against Him. He cannot serve you as well as I can, for He has not had the nine years'
special
experience that I have had of the difficulties of this State and the difficulties of your complex nature. I am the only successor to myself that I can honestly recommend, and I am worth fifteen hundred rupees a month to you, and the State can easily afford to pay it—I, as Dewan, am the best judge of that.”

He has not got it yet: His Highness has not made up his mind; but I do not think there can be any doubt as to what will happen.

I asked Babaji Rao to-day whether it was true, as Narayan had told me, that a Hindoo boy may not shave off his mustache during his father's lifetime. It was quite true, he said.

“Does that give rise to jesting or bitter retorts in family disputes?” I asked. “I mean, might an angry son say to his father, ‘Well, the sooner I have a clean upper lip the better!'”

Babaji Rao rather uneasily agreed that such a thing might possibly be said, but that as a rule children did not dispute with their parents.

He was sitting with me in the encampment, and I asked him if he would like a drink of iced water.

“But I suppose you won't be able to take it, will you?” I added, remembering.

“Perhaps
you
have some there?” he inquired of Narayan, who is a Brahman. Narayan nodded.