Behramji Malabari

“ Holi is not a holy institution wholly, but it is a jolly holiday nevertheless. It is the season of free love and free language, not only among the Vaishnavas, but the lower castes of Gujarát, the Saturnalia of indecent song, the high carnival of mad carousal. It is the season of rang and rág, which two innocent-looking monosyllables the High Court Translator may translate as "red paint and music," but which, in reality, mean the luxuries of love's embrace, the sporting of Káma [1] and Rati. [2] The origin of Holi has been a subject of ardent speculation by philosophers and theosophists. ”

“ And though the dark visions of bankruptcy and jail were the offspring of my morbid imagination, there is no doubt that, with a hasty and inexperienced judge, I would not have been able to clear myself of the many charges foisted upon me by the baffled fiend. Since then, in the plenitude of my experience, I have warned all from going to Court. Suffer any amount of reasonable inconvenience, but do not rush into courts of law. You can never be sure of what may happen. Courts of law are a luxury for the well-to-do, and the nothing-to-do, so to call them. ”

“ Twenty years ago, the re-marriage of a Hindu widow was an event not to be dreamt of. In the course of last year I have recorded at least fifteen such unions. The bold spirits who defy Caste in order to save their honour and secure the happiness to which instinct tells them they are entitled, have to put up with bitter persecution, even personal violence from bigots in power; but the eye of an All-wise Providence watches over the victims. The time is coming when, sanctified by Him and blessed by all sensible Gujarátis, widow re-marriage will grow up an institution of the land. ”

“ Such is the Aghori. His look is that of a mad idiot. There are the insane leer, the protruding tongue, the filthy teeth. The Aghori never washes, never dresses. He takes only carrion or putrid food, and drinks foul water. In one hand he carries a human skull, in another some hideous instrument of torture and death. These are his insignia. To complete the picture of this horrible process of brutalisation, it is only to be added that the Aghori besmears himself with human ordure. He does not hold human life in the least account. Nothing is too sacred for him. ”

“ No mortal thinks himself so happy as the Native Magistrate in the Mofussil. But there are times when even he, whose smile gives life to the evil-doer and whose frown annihilates him, feels insecure and uneasy. He does not fear the Collector, the Judge, the Revenue Commissioner, or the Governor himself. He meets the requisition of each with cheerful nonchalance. But whenever he hears that an English barrister is engaged to plead for a prisoner before him, or that a European soldier or sailor is defendant in a suit, the Native Magistrate loses appetite and his sleep. ”

“ The Meer passed his time in the zenana. He so devotedly loved his wife that he never gave her a rival. All the livelong day they were together, this infatuated pair, so absorbed in their new-born happiness. To me, an unmarried Hindu,the Meer's self-abandonment was shocking. He never left the side of his Bibi—she would not part with him. I had not the entree of the zenana, but learnt from the servants that the master and mistress were inseparable. The Meer stole out of his inner chamber once in a fortnight or so, when he had to ask me for a large sum of money, or to go to the mosque. ”

“ But the Parsis of Surat have fallen upon evil days. The Shettia class, that is, the aristocracy, became, by training, lazy, listless, gregarious creatures, grovelling for generations in one and the same groove. They cannot understand patriotism, and though charity is the very basis of their grand old faith, they are utter strangers to that greatest of divine graces. Their notion of charity is the giving away of alms, the distribution of money—their own and anybody else's—to the deserving or undeserving, with some object, often that of earning popularity or official favour. ”

“ But in one thing Adamji bin Didamji differs very materially from every other Gujaráti—he has absolutely no taste for politics. He is utterly callous as to the political management of the country. He has infinite faith in the Government, next only in intensity to his faith in the Mohla. The strongest political agitation in the country fails to strike a responsive chord in the heart. He is a lover of peace. He will put himself to any amount of inconvenience, he will sacrifice anything to secure peace. Peace to Adamji is a priceless blessing ”

“ There is a profound mystery always overhanging the personal affairs of the Máháráj. That mystery shrouds his birth, it shrouds his life, and I'll be bound that same mystery shrouds his death. We know that he was born in 1829, visibly of human parents; but some hundreds of thousands of his worshippers assert, on their solemn oaths, that Jivánlálji Máháráj existed ages before he was born, and that ages before that event did he carry on that amorous traffic with his fair devotees which is essential,in the Vaishnava creed, to the salvation and beatification of the degraded female soul. ”

“ In all his habits of life simplicity, that is, a love of cheapness, is the leading trait. He loves his holidays, and during the Holi the Márwári abandons himself to full indulgence of the senses, but he takes care that the carousals do not cost him much in money. "Anything but money, unless it is for me"—that is the Márwári's motto. The Márwári makes a good friend so far as his advice goes. He marries late in life, and makes a loving husband and father, so far as love is love without money. He is too fond of hoarding to part with anything unless forced to. ”

“ Next to her marriage day and the day on which she becomes a mother, Diwáli is the most welcome occasion to the Hindu female. The poor weary heart has then some glimpses of light and sunshine; it is full of song and sweetness, and of the thousand little charities peculiar to her sex. Two days after the Diwáli is the Bhaubij day, a holiday reminding you of patriarchal times and customs. On this day all members of the family are drawn towards the warmth of the family hearth; brothers gone to other towns on business, sisters gone to their husbands, uncles, nephews, aunts, nieces, all meet at home. ”

“ He is a droll fellow, this Parsi Levite, and laughs over the folly of those on whose substance he fattens. He has materials in him of a good divine and a scholar, but he is born in an atmosphere of hollow imposture and sham, and lives and dies a cheat and a charlatan. To this man is due the invention and perpetuation of the thick haze of superstition which envelops the pure and simple form of worship bequeathed to us by the Prophet-Priest of Iran.
The Mahomedan holiday of the year, if holiday it may be called, is the Mo'haram. ”

“ And when such a poet as Válmiki writes in such a language as Sanskrit, the outcome of his labours must, of course, be inimitable. Each verse of the Rámáyan has a world of hidden meaning. Each simple line, which looks common-place at first sight, discovers, when carefully studied, an unbroken scene of beauty, under the surface, a glorious panorama of "sweetness and light," where the reader, drinking his fill of the freshest and healthiest sentiment, forgets himself in the contemplation of the genius that conjured up a creation so perfect in symmetry and proportion. ”

“ The filthy epithets, the wanton glances, the obscene gestures, defy description;but these are rewarded, on the part of the dusky Márwáran, by equally shameless ogling and the squirting of red paint. This is the only holiday the stingy sojourner in Gujarát enjoys, according to his lights. Never is the morose Márwári more free, more frolicsome, more abandoned, than on this occasion. ”

“ Here are no external "trappings and suits of woe"—the grief is genuine, of and in the heart.
Given the time, the place, the frantic enthusiasm of the Moslem nature, and the awfulness of the tale of murder and assassination, and the veriest day-drudge will develop into a hero and a patriot, the most arrant coward will raise himself into a sympathising martyr. Wonderful is the influence of Islam on the believer's mind; and a faith that has such a hold on men's minds will endure with the sun. ”

“ In these games the Hindu is joined heartily by the Parsi and the Mahomedan. Diwáli illuminations are enjoyed by all classes, young and old, rich and poor. The vast multitude of a hundred nationalities surging up the thoroughfares like the waves of the ocean, in all colours of the rainbow, each heart bent upon enjoying the present, and each face beaming with the enjoyment, must be a magnificent sight indeed. ”

“ True to his Asiatic instincts, he has "an eye to business," even in this solemn obligation of life. He prays not because it is his duty to do so, but because a prayer opens the way for a request! So he thinks, and so he acts. Who has not seen the orthodox Parsi of a morning or evening at the sea-shore? With what arts, what blandishments, he tries to seduce the Will Divine! ”

“ But my best friends at Surat are the Irish Presbyterian missionaries, Dixon, Wallace, Montgomery, Taylor—alas, they no longer are! William Dixon, my own revered master, died quite a young man. You could see at first sight that he was a scholar and a martyr. He effected much good at Surat; and though death too soon cut short a career of brilliant promise, his influence is felt even now to be at work.
William Wallace was our Bible teacher—a man of great benevolence and learning. I have never seen a man so gentle in spirit and so unruffled under provocation. ”

“ And honest editors immortalise the virtues of Jamál Gotá, Esquire, Justice of the Peace, Khán Báhádur, "our great philanthropist," whom they know to have been an undutiful son, a wicked husband, an unnatural parent, a false friend, so worse than brutal in selfishness, that the veriest brute would have blushed for him had Jamál Gotá been assigned the place in creation which he so richly deserves. ”

“ To sum up, Baroda is a good place enough, but it is dull, dull beyond description. There is no living here; it is a mere humdrum existence. Between the people and the "upper ten thousand" there is no sympathy. You have no such institution as Society.
Exhortation.
How is it there is no missionary here? I demand. Import one, ye powers that be; he is indispensable to progress and enlightenment. Get up popular lectures and street-preaching. "Steady internal progress," and all that, is very well, but let the people learn to enjoy life under your administration. ”

“ Such is Adamji bin Didamji; and whoever comes to know him well will agree that Adamji is, taking all in all, an exemplary man in every respect. As a son and pupil, as a brother or father, as a friend, his life is a lesson to his neighbours. As a citizen he is invaluable—simple, sober, prudent, and eminently loyal. Long live my friend Adamji bin Didamji, a worthy exemplar to the "educated" jackanapes of the generation. ”

“ I am now a rich and highly-respected merchant—so high up in the world that I cannot visit my master any longer. My lady is said to have grown gray-haired; but neither premature age nor her past sufferings, the gloomy present nor the blank future, can lessen her devotion to her husband. She seems to live for and in him. She is his sole attendant—the servants attend to minor duties. She is charitable even now, and on every Jumá (Friday) she gives what she can to the needy and suffering. I do not feel quite satisfied with myself when reviewing the past, but then, you see, a poor man must live! ”