We presented a curious medley when all were assembled. A Hindu
Collector drove up in his motor car, faultlessly dressed in English
clothes, and so like a courteous European in his general bearing that,
except for his white and gold turban, it might have been difficult to
suppose that he was not one. Many Indians are, comparatively speaking,
very fair, and if you are living habitually in the country you become
almost oblivious to shades of complexion. The English Collector also
arrived, with his wife. Collectors are, of course, magistrates and
officials of importance. The Commissioner of the division followed,
who is senior to a Collector. Mohammedans, Hindus, and a few Parsees
arrived, some in smart carriages, a few in hired conveyances, and
others on foot. Another motor car with an Indian owner drove up. At
present the dash, and go, and smartness of a motor-car seem strangely
out of keeping with the spirit of leisure, and delay, and general
shabbiness so marked in things Indian.
When the party might be said to be in full swing I do not know that it
was much duller, or more pointless, than receptions in England.
Certainly a cup of tea is more refreshing than the fragment of betel
nut wrapped up in a leaf and enclosed in a piece of gold paper. Few
Europeans have courage to eat it, but it should always be accepted,
and after your departure you can gladden the heart of any native by
giving it to him. A few Indians provide spirituous drinks for their
English visitors, under the idea that they cannot exist without a
whisky peg. And, indeed, it is said that some young English guests
confirm this belief by the use they make of the drinks provided.
A couple of Mohammedan men came forward, and seating themselves on a
carpet gave a brief musical performance, after which a man sung a song
with an air of such comical affectation that it was difficult to
maintain the serious gravity with which the Indian part of the
audience listened to him. Preparations for a photograph of the
assembled company commencing, it was an indication that it was time
for me to depart. All the more distinguished guests had been
previously decorated with garlands of pink roses and white jasmine,
and in addition they were given a kind of sceptre, made of the same
sort of flowers tied to a short stick. The less remarkable people
received an inferior garland and a single rose with a few leaves, made
up like a button-hole; and a certain unimportant residuum did not
receive any decoration at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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