The race, the caste and often the province of a resident of India
may be determined by his headgear. The Parsees wear tall fly-trap
hats made of horse hair, with a top like a cow's foot; the
Mohammedans wear the fez, and the Hindus the turban, and there
are infinite varieties of turbans, both in the material used
and in the manner in which they are put up. An old resident of
India can usually tell where a man comes from by looking at his
turban.
II
THE CITY OF BOMBAY
There are two cities in Bombay, the native city and the foreign
city. The foreign city spreads out over a large area, and, although
the population is only a small per cent of that of the native
city, it occupies a much larger space, which is devoted to groves,
gardens, lawns, and other breathing places and pleasure grounds,
while, as is the custom in the Orient, the natives are packed
away several hundred to the acre in tall houses, which, with
over-hanging balconies and tile roofs, line the crooked and narrow
streets on both sides. Behind some of these tall and narrow fronts,
however, are dwellings that cover a good deal of ground, being
much larger than the houses we are accustomed to, because the
Hindus have larger families and they all live together. When
a young man marries he brings his bride home to his father's
house, unless his mother-in-law happens to be a widow, when they
often take up their abode with her. But it is not common for
young couples to have their own homes; hence the dwellings in
the native quarters are packed with several generations of the
same family, and that makes the occupants easy prey to plagues,
famine and other agents of human destruction.
The Parsees love air and light, and many rich Hindus have followed
the foreign colony out into the suburbs, where you find a succession
of handsome villas or bungalows, as they are called, half-hidden by
high walls that inclose charming gardens. Some of these bungalows
are very attractive, some are even sumptuous in their
appointments--veritable palaces, filled with costly furniture
and ornaments--but the climate forbids the use of many of the
creature comforts which American and European taste demands. The
floors must be of tiles or cement and the curtains of bamboo,
because hangings, carpets, rugs and upholstery furnish shelter for
destructive and disagreeable insects, and the aim of everybody
is to secure as much air as possible without admitting the heat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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