INDIAN SERVANTS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue XXXII, 9 March 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

INDIAN SERVANTS.

Indian servants are in mmy respects like children in their helplessness, their naivete" their timidity, their readiness to be pleased, their foolishness, their proneness to falsehood, their strong personal attachment. Kven in their total lack of any sense of humour they resemble children. No Englishman could hear English spoken in the comically barbarous way in which Hindustani is commonly spoken by the British soldier without betraying amusement. But the Indian face remains darkly impassive. Not the faintest twitch betokens any lurking laughter. Their love, too, of giving, and receiving high-sounding titles is childish in its prodigality. Humble-minded as they are, and with deep-rooted respect for all differences of rank, it arises from no vulgar wish to appear other than what they are, and io its exaggerated indulgence savours even of sarcasm. A tailor and cook both enjoy the privilege of being addressed by the exalted title of 'Kalipha,' or Emperor. The water carrier is always 'Jemadar,' or Captain, and the bearer is 'Sirdar,' signifying chief among men. while, as a crowning irony, the sweeper, who ranks but little higher than the dogs he looks after is invariably called ' Mehter,' or Prince. The necessity of keeping a great number of servants, often wondered at by dwellers at home, is caused chiefly by the waste of time involved by cast prejudices. Instead of having one dinner hour for all, and oue man to cook for all, there are few who are not obliged to cook for themselves. The table-servants cannot eat with the grooms, nor they with the coachman, nor he with the sweeper. So each mau has twice a day to light his own little fire, draw water from the well, and cook his bowl of rice—a proceeding which wastes no small amount of time. One servant we had was of a cast of oilsellers, and he told us that there was not one of our 24 other servants with whom he could eat bread, i. e., if the other cooked the food, and only one who could eat with him if be cooked. We asked him if this distinction had not its drawbacks ? He merely replied that it was the custom—what could he do? He himself was the humble recipient of four thin rupees a month, shared doubtless by a wife and many dusky youngsters, and yet he would have cheerfully submitted to be whipped to death rather than eat anything that had been placed on our table. It is strange how uncomplainingly men wear the irou fetters forged by the great goddess Custom. They may ridicule her with their lips, but they obey her in their lives, in curious contrast to the many zealots who worship with their lips a god whose precepts they persistently ignore. The table servants are nieu of minute resources. Nothing daunts them. If you do not like the way a vegetable marrow is cooked, your man will say, ' Your Majesty has but to give the order and to-morrow it shall be made into French beans ! ' If they tell you there is beefsteak for dinner, you ask quite as a matter of course, ' What is it made of?" when the answer will frequently be, ' Of mutton, as no beef was to be procured.' The want of beef was a misfortune, but it could not be allowed to affect the menu. We were sometimes entertained at dinner by native gentlemen, on which occasions the table was spread with our own linen, plate and china, and we were waited on by our own servants, who also had cooked the dinner. The host provided the materials, no doubt consulting our men as to what would be required, who gave a list which must, I fear, have conveyed an appalling idea of our carnivorous powers. We were told that for one of these entertainments our host had killed a sheep, a goose, a quack, and six fowls for our behoof, besides sending a lavish amount of tiuued salmon, oysters, and vegetables. The dinner being a ceremonious one, although only my husband and myself sat dowu to it, the traditional number of courses were religiously adhered to, quite regavdless of the distressful consequences to ourselves. When the game course was placed with much ceremony on the table, we were Btruck by something unusual in the look of the partridges, seeing which our servant told us in a solemn whisper that they were chickens, ' but dressed as partridges." The exigencies of a State dinner necessitated a game course—there was no precedent to the contrary-ami no gams being procurable, these innocents had been offered up as victims on the altar of the great goddess, Custom. The lengths to which her worship leads some of her more witless votaries_ was amusingly illustrated on one occasion when we were out in camp. Our head man had gone on a few day's holiday—probably to bury his grandmother, a relative whose habit it seems to be to die a thousand deaths, so often was attendance at her funeral obsequies advanced as the reason for asking leave—and we were left to the tender mercies of an underling whose intelligence was equal to that of most owls. At dinner the first night we inquired what there was for the second course. ' A crow,' he replied, with bland alacrity; but, seeing our horror-struck faces, added hastily, 'At least, not a crow, but a long-tailed bird your honour shot.' We then discoved that he had proposed serving up a large hornbill for the game course. Frank Buckland would have delighted in that man—From Sketches of Indian Life, in the Cornhill Magazine.