Edward Fenton Elwin

“ In the Indian world of nature the sweet melody of the birds of England is absent. No Indian bird knows how to sing. Some make a brave attempt, but they break down after the third note. The so-called Indian nightingale only deserves its name because its performance is a shade less disappointing than that of the rest. Nor do the birds compensate for their lack of musical power by the splendour of their plumage. It is generally supposed that plants and animals in the tropics must necessarily be brilliant in colour. But many English birds equal Indian ones even in this respect. ”

“ Porters at railway stations unblushingly beg for tips, and remonstrate at the smallness of the gift, and pursue the traveller about the station beseeching him to consider their poverty. If you have been staying in an Indian bungalow, an array of servants gather round at the time of your departure, unless the master of the house has set his face against the stereotyped custom, and by their elaborate salaams and outstretched palms indicate what is expected of you. The disappointed ones follow you down the carriage-drive reminding you of your neglect. ”

“ The sudden fall of night resembles the gloom produced by the rapid gathering of clouds before a thunderstorm in England, and gives for the moment a certain sense of sadness. In the last half-hour before sunset you see people hurrying along the roads and the many footpaths which intersect each other all over India, in order to get home before dark. ”

“ The shopkeeper does not rise from the pillows on the floor of his little shop on which he is dozing; the brass-worker or silversmith will scarcely lift up his eyes from his work; the women will hardly come even to their house-door to look; the little boys busy playing marbles down some side street are too much absorbed in their game to run and see the show. This is a curious contrast to the rapidity with which a crowd will gather on the smallest provocation in a European city. ”

“ The tune, which never seems to vary whatever the occasion, consists of almost as few notes as the song of an Indian bird, and it is played over and over again and no one grows weary of it. Even the performers play it for the thousandth time with almost as much enthusiasm as when they first began. When they have played far into the night, and fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, they wake up in the morning to begin again. ”

“ They have many delightful natural characteristics, and the years that I have lived amongst them have only served to increase my deep affection for the people of India, and the real pleasure that I find in their society. The defects of Hindus come from their religion, which is deeply steeped in idolatry, and neither gives them a code of morality, nor grace to keep one if it had been given. The strongest denunciations of Hinduism come from the people themselves. I often repeat what the old Brahmin, who lived and died a Hindu, said when he roared out to me, "It is a most infernal religion." ”

“ But as you watch them through the chinks of the blinds made of slender reeds, which shade the verandah from the glare of the sun, you see signs that all is not harmony even in their small world.
The grey and black striped fur of the squirrel always appears spotlessly clean, and in all their spare moments they are busy at their toilet. The bushy tail is their chief beauty, and it is scarcely ever at rest. ”

“ If you see a little crowd of bowing, smiling, well-dressed Indians at a station, gathered round a young Englishman in a sun tope, who is talking to them affably, and trying not to look embarrassed by the garland of flowers which they have put round his neck, you may know that it is probably the Collector, or Commissioner, of the district, who is being seen off by some of his constituents. ”

“ A mason may be seen sitting at work on a wall with his umbrella in one hand and his trowel in the other. Farm labourers out in the country, seated on the pole of their bullock-cart, or men perched on the top of loads of wood in great cities, will enjoy both the dignity and the shade of their outspread umbrella in the hot season. ”

“ On the road home the crowd sometimes shows a measure of joviality, and it is always customary to usher victorious wrestlers into their own village with shouts and loud proclamation of what has been accomplished. After a victory in one of the big city contests the hero may even be escorted home with lights and music.
It is in games, perhaps, more than in anything else, that national characteristics make themselves apparent. This is specially noticeable in India when anyone gets injured in sports or cricket, or if he has run an exhausting race. ”

“ It would probably be considered almost a heresy even to suggest that the various styles of dress worn by Indian men are not really more picturesque than many other styles. A street in an Eastern city, with its throng of quaintly dressed people, is much more fascinating in appearance than the sombre hues of an average London crowd in the winter time. The rich colours and the sparkling jewels of an assembly of Indian nobility attract the eye by their brilliance. ”

“ There are a few writers of fiction who depict Indian native life and talk faithfully. But many readers get an entirely false idea of India and its people from certain popular novels, which are supposed to paint a true picture, but in which the description even of cities, and villages, and scenery are often as unlike the reality as the circumstances and conversations. Indian people talk much in the same way as ordinary folk in other parts of the world, except that unseemly allusions are freely admitted into general conversation in a way which would not be tolerated in a Christian country. ”

“ The histories of the gods, like all heathen mythology, consist of tales, some picturesque, some foolish, some dull and childish, some obscene. How far the educated Hindu believes them it is difficult to know. Those that are obviously absurd he will say are allegorical, and in spite of their diversity he will maintain that they are all manifestations of one god. The uneducated rustic, so far as he is familiar with these stories, believes them.
The ascetic life, at any rate as represented by the professional ascetics of India, is not held in admiration by the people of the country. ”

“ The Mohammedans are one because they have a common religion and a common law. The Christians are one, because at least one point of faith is common. But the Hindus have neither faith, nor practice, nor law to distinguish them from others. I should therefore define a Hindu to be one born in India, whose parents so far as people can remember were not foreigners, or did not profess a foreign religion like Mohammedanism or Christianity, and who himself has not embraced such religions. ”

“ It is in practical, rather than in religious matters, that a new head is sometimes the cause of unrest. Missions being at present chiefly worked by societies which have their own theological bias, the new-comer is [95] generally of the same way of thinking as his predecessor. But anyone coming to India for the first time, in spite of everything being new and strange, is apt to think that he sees his way clearly, and that the work has got into a rut and that a general upheaval is necessary. The tendency of the Indian is to be conservative of established traditions. ”

“ But supposing you are a poor native, wanting to see the sahib on some matter of business, unless you are lucky enough to waylay him as he drives in or out, which he may possibly resent, you stand a poor chance of getting near him unless you are prepared to tip the door-keeper. It is to be feared that even Hindus, coming in an honest spirit of inquiry to a missionary's house, have been choked off by an official of this nature. It is of the utmost importance that the front verandah of a mission-house should be freely accessible to whoever likes to step into it. ”

“ The dresses of Indian women in general may safely be accepted as being more picturesque and more convenient than the styles of female costume prevalent in Europe. And the turban for the men, with its variety of shape and colour, and its great practical utility as a protection from the rays of the tropical sun, is without doubt the most artistic covering for the head that the world [45] produces. It is a sad pity that the turban is being slowly but steadily ousted by the adoption of a stupid little cloth cap, as ugly as it is useless. ”

“ When the church at Yerandawana was building, the first indication that its unusual design commended itself to the Indian mind was that passers-by began to stop and look at it. You need to be familiar with the Indian's state of oblivion concerning [20] his surroundings, already referred to, in order to understand the force of this. To pause and gaze at a big building in process of erection is, with most people, a natural and obvious thing to do; especially if time is of no object and the design of the building a novelty. But not so the Indian. ”

“ People often speak of the Prayer Book as if it was a modern compilation of purely Western origin, and they seem to forget that it is teeming with ancient Eastern thought. It is an instance of its Catholicity that it supplies the needs of all nations. When carefully translated, many of the people of the East make more use of it than some good Christians do in England. Even rustic Indians use it intelligently and with great appreciation, and it forms their chief manual of private devotion. Indian children soon learn to follow the various services which it contains with happiness and profit. ”

“ Hardly any transaction, great or small, is completed in heathen India without something of the nature of a bribe taking place, and the system is so almost universal that it seems as if it is likely to be a long time before it is eradicated. Hardly anyone will do anything for anybody without the stimulus of a reward of some sort. Many Indian officials will not discharge even the ordinary duties of their office without frequent "refreshers" from the people amongst whom they work. It is naturally the poorest and weakest who suffer most from this form of oppression. ”

“ Every Englishman who takes pleasure in the sense of Empire ought to realise that it brings with it great responsibilities, and therefore that every Englishman has a measure of responsibility towards India. ”

“ The truth is, that what may be advantageous in the heathen world may be quite otherwise when applied to the circumstances of the Christian community. Because it was the old custom in Hindu villages to settle difficulties, secular and religious, by a Panchayat, it was thought that it would be advantageous to exercise discipline in the Church in the same way. It was well to give it a trial, but many begin to doubt its applicability. The Indian often is, like many others, a man of strong prejudices, and even Christianity is not altogether successful in uprooting this fault. ”

“ Sir George Clarke, Governor of Bombay, at a meeting of an Indian Choral Society in Poona, in August 1911, in sketching the diverse developments of Eastern and Western music, suggested that the tones of the instruments in vogue had affected the art of singing, and that the falsetto style, common amongst Indians, is in imitation of the shrillness of their reed instruments, while the fuller voice, cultivated in Europe, follows the development of the ampler harmonies of Western instruments. Each style of music represents a cultivation of certain qualities with a neglect of others. ”

“ When you are travelling through India in the train, the impression left upon you is that of a country which belongs to no one in particular, because there is often so little trace of any boundary between field and field. ”

“ But the power of custom is so overwhelming in India that, in spite of the obvious advantages to be derived from the arrangement, the probability is that the remarriage of a Hindu widow will for a long time continue to be a most unusual event.
Caste here also, as well as everywhere else, is a barrier to progress. I once suggested to a delightful and accomplished young Hindu, of good position but not a Brahmin, who would have liked an intellectual and companionable wife, that he should marry one of the widows from the Home. ”

“ He thinks that the people need a firmer hand, that they have been dealt with too lightly. He no longer keeps the good side uppermost, and begins to see only the defects. He gets the mission possibly into good external order, but much of the grace and beauty of his ministry goes out in the process, and there will be no attractive force at work to draw in the heathen. The worker in India needs to pray constantly that the spirit of love and sympathy, and the yearning to help souls with which he began, may never be allowed to grow less ”

“ Wrestling is the chief indigenous athletic exercise of India. Nearly every village has its band of wrestlers and its gymnasium. The latter is often a substantial house as village houses go, much decorated with wall paintings inside and out. Besides the wrestling-pit, with its thick layer of soft earth, it often contains Indian clubs, large stones with which the young men exercise their muscles after the manner of dumb-bells, the post round which they twist and twirl to develop their arms and legs, and the drums which they beat in the temple and elsewhere on festivals. ”

“ A dark, windowless house with an earthen floor is where the ordinary Indian feels most at home. The first thing that Babaji did when left to himself was to put iron bars to the windows to keep out thieves, and to close in the fronts of his verandahs in the same way, so that they looked like cages in the Zoological Gardens. Most Indians live in constant dread of nocturnal thieves, and their fear is not entirely without justification. ”

“ Numbers of Hindus break their caste rules in private. More than once a high-caste visitor in the verandah, when he was alone, has asked me for a drink of water; and there is no breach of caste so heinous as to take water from the hand of a Christian. Now and then a Hindu lad will display such an audacious courage in religious matters that it partakes rather of the nature of a boyish freak. Several big Brahmin lads, most of them being about sixteen or seventeen years old, had been visiting the Mission-house rather frequently and showed a good deal of interest in Christianity. ”

“ It is a sign of the increasing prosperity of India that brass and copper vessels are largely taking the place of the earthenware cooking-pots. A carpenter is found in almost every village, because petty repairs to farming implements are an everyday need. He is a man of some importance, and wears a sacred thread like a Brahmin.
When travelling in the train from Bombay to Poona for the first time, I noticed here and there in the corner of many fields a sort of litter, about the length of a man, raised on rough poles about six feet high, and on it a mysterious heap of rubbish. ”