Part 5 (2/2)
The meal of an average Indian Christian family is a complete contrast.
Poverty probably compels simplicity and frugality; but father and mother and children sit down together, and there is much sociality.
The desire to sit on chairs merely as a mark of distinction is a foolish aspiration. Nevertheless, as an Indian Christian once expressed it to me, ”The wish to come off the floor means that we are growing in refinement and politeness.”
There are usually no windows in most of the older houses of the poorer people. Modern houses have sometimes several windows, but they are barred and shuttered, and from long habit are usually kept closed by preference. The only movable articles in the houses of the bulk of the Indian population are the bra.s.s and copper, or earthenware, cooking pots and pans, and the prosperity of the household can be pretty accurately gauged by the quality, number, and condition of these utensils. A few people own besides an old box or two, generally containing an acc.u.mulation of old rags, which nearly all Indians seem to take an interest in collecting. Extra clothes, when they have any, are hung on large wooden pegs, which are fixed into the walls of most rooms in Indian dwellings.
One result of the comfortless and dreary aspect of the interior of an Indian's house is that very few of them have any home life, as we understand it. The Indian does not sit indoors, unless compelled to do so by sickness, or stress of weather. And though the majority are satisfied so to live, because no other manner of life is known to them, there is nothing beautiful about it. Even from a purely physical point of view, it is an unwholesome state of things. The airless, lightless houses are most unsavoury, and in times of sickness and childbirth this is intensified. It cannot be wondered at that plague, or cholera, or malignant fevers, often make frightful ravages in families. Nor does it tend to elevate the character to sit on a mud floor dozing in the dark, or telling scandalous stories with the children drinking in every word.
By way of contrast, I recall the country home of a Brahmin doctor, who has built himself a house at Yerandawana as a haven of refuge in time of plague. It is surrounded by a little garden, radiant with flowers.
It lacks the neatness of an English garden, nevertheless it is something far away ahead of anything which any of his neighbours have attempted. His name means ”seven sons.” He has already got six, and is hoping for the seventh. These six little sons are dressed in ordinary English boys' dress. They are frequent visitors at the Mission bungalow. It may, of course, be only English prejudice which makes this dress appear to me better for the boys themselves than the scant garments of the Indian. Instead of the usual shorn head and small pigtail, their glossy hair, very neat in the case of the elder boys, tumbled about in the case of the younger ones, is a delightful contrast.
But to look in at the open door in the evening at their home life, as I have often done, is entirely convincing. A table is in the middle of the room covered with a red cloth; there is a bright lamp, a few pictures are on the walls, and the party of cheerful boys are sitting round the table. Some are playing games, others are drawing, some are looking at books. Though in such a different clime, the sight brought back the memory of winter evenings in boyish days at home.
This Hindu doctor has practically parted with his religion. There are probably no objects of wors.h.i.+p in his country home, except a Tulsi plant on a pedestal in the back compound. This plant is a good deal venerated by women, and no doubt was provided for the benefit of the ladies of his household. But although it is some gain to have given up idolatrous customs, and to have adopted some of the refinements of civilised life, he and his little family are in the unhappy condition at present of being without a religion.
A Hindu contractor, who was visiting the church one day, surprised me by saying, as he turned towards one of the pictures hanging on the walls: ”This is the baptism of Christ--the river is the Jordan. He was baptized by John.” I asked him how he knew all these facts. He replied that he had been educated at a Jesuit school, and that he had learnt them there. I said that, having been brought up under such circ.u.mstances, and having learnt so much and being now well advanced in years, how was it that he was still a Hindu. He answered: ”I cannot tell. All I know is that now I do not know what I am.”
He asked many intelligent questions. Amongst the rest, did we hear confessions? He was a type of a constantly increasing number of educated men, who, although outwardly appearing as Hindus, only practise the minimum of religious observances, and have no belief at all. Amongst these are men, like the Brahmin doctor, who have imbibed something of the spirit of Christianity from what they have heard and seen, and are distinctly the better for having dropped so much of their Hinduism. But their position is a pathetic one, because so few of them have the courage to act upon the considerable measure of truth which has come home to them.
CHAPTER IX
INDIAN ART
Intrusion of Western ideas; unfortunate result. Royal palaces. Carving and bal.u.s.trades; graceful domestic utensils; their high polish. Native jewellery; beautiful examples in villages. Incongruous pictures from Europe.
Indian oil paintings; effect of Christianity on Indian art; wall decorations. Women's taste in colour.
Indian art is sadly degenerating through the intrusion of inferior Western designs. Modern houses in most Indian cities lack the artistic grace which distinguishes many of the old houses of wealthy people.
Part of the beauty of many ancient dwellings in Poona City is to be found in their admirable proportions. Modern houses in India are often built in a pseudo-Gothic style, with barbarous innovations in the shape of base metal-work and glaring coloured gla.s.s, and in which all sense of proportion has been hopelessly lost.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A MODERN HOUSE IN POONA CITY, BUILT BY ONE OF THE INDIAN CLERGY.]
Some of the modern palaces of Indian Rajahs are built and furnished in this style, at an immense cost, and with most incongruous results.
Whereas many of the old palaces, and those of northern India in particular, afford beautiful examples of royal residences, well adapted to the needs of Indians, and yet capable of being modified for the use of modern-minded rulers who have adopted some of the household arrangements of the West. Sir Swinton Jacob has shown in the fairy-like palace which he built at Jeypore, but which internally you find exactly suited to the requirements of a modern museum, how possible it is to adapt Indian architecture to present-day needs.
There is a good deal of carving, effectively placed and graceful in design and skilfully executed, both on the outside and inside of old houses in the City of Poona; and the bal.u.s.trades that form the front of the narrow verandahs, which run along so many of the houses with happy effect, afford charming specimens of what the turner's craft can accomplish. But nowadays ironwork, such as adorns a cheap bedstead, more often than not is subst.i.tuted for the graceful bal.u.s.trade, and some tawdry decoration, or coa.r.s.ely-cut stone corbel, takes the place of the picturesque carved woodwork.
The graceful outline of pots and pans used in Indian households has often been remarked upon, and happily at present there are no signs of degeneration in this department of domestic life. The traditional shapes still hold their ground; and even quite common utensils, made of coa.r.s.e earthenware, are pleasing to look at. The more costly bra.s.s and copper vessels in ordinary daily use are delightful examples of how much beauty can be got out of an artistic outline, even when there is an entire absence of ornamentation. In the midst of a vast amount of apparent disregard for cleanliness, there are certain matters about which a Hindu is excessively particular. The metal cups and pans must be polished up to the highest pitch of perfection, and though the Hindu woman will take the dust or mud of the street for her polis.h.i.+ng powder, the result of her labours is that the vessels s.h.i.+ne brilliantly. They are the more beautiful because, in order that cleanliness may be a.s.sured by the smooth, unbroken surface, they are quite unadorned.
It has sometimes been discussed whether the specimens of old Indian bra.s.s in museums should be polished or not, and some collectors carefully preserve the old tarnish. It would be impossible in the English climate to keep the objects continually bright, without infinite labour; but it is well to remember, in considering the artistic merits of any brazen article, that its original normal condition was one of high polish.
Native jewellery is also being influenced for the worse by the infusion of Western ideas. The Indian workers in gold and silver are apt now to imitate the design of the cheap jewellery imported from Europe, and they are not aware that their own traditional designs are really much the most beautiful. Many of the chains and necklaces and bracelets worn by villagers, both male and female, are the best examples of unadulterated Indian art, because modern ideas and shapes have not yet reached them; or, if they see some of these new devices when they come to give their order to the goldsmith in the city, they are still conservative enough to prefer the designs of their forefathers. There are quaint and ingenious devices for fastening the necklaces, and part of the charm of the primitive handiwork is its individual character, shown in a certain roughness and want of rigid symmetry.
In the houses of the more old-fas.h.i.+oned wealthy Hindus, in their big reception-room, only rarely used, may be seen curious examples of the mistakes which may be made so easily when introducing objects of art from another country without adequate knowledge. Pictures from England, interspersed with mirrors, form the chief decoration on the walls of many of these saloons. They are hung almost touching each other, very high up, like the ”sky-ed” line of the Royal Academy, but with nothing on the walls below, and they often present a most curious jumble: a few good engravings; gaudy pictures, first issued as advertis.e.m.e.nts; portraits of persons, known and unknown; worthless prints in gorgeous frames; and a picture with some merit, stuck all awry in a frame which does not belong to it.
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