As Soon As The Sun Dried Him He Was Dressed Again By
Some Of The Little Ladies, Whilst One Part Of Them Sang And The
Other Sprinkled His Head With Water From Lotus Leaves Twisted Into
Tubes.
We understood that this was a delicate attention to the
water gods.
We were also told that the whole of the previous night had been
given up to the worship of various spirits. The last rites, begun
weeks ago, were hurriedly brought to an end during this last night.
Invocations to Ganesha, to the god of marriages; to the gods of
the elements, water, fire, air and earth; to the goddess of the
smallpox and other illnesses; to the spirits of ancestors and
planetary spirits, to the evil spirits, good spirits, family spirits,
and so on, and so on. Suddenly our ears were struck by strains
of music.... Good heavens! what a dreadful symphony it was! The
ear-splitting sounds of Indian tom-toms, Tibetan drunis, Singalese
pipes, Chinese trumpets, and Burmese gongs deafened us on all sides,
awakening in our souls hatred for humanity and humanity's inventions.
"De tous les bruits du monde celui de la musique est le plus
desagreable!" was my ever-recurring thought. Happily, this agony
did not last long, and was replaced by the choral singing of
Brahmans and nautches, which was very original, but perfectly bearable.
The wedding was a rich one, and so the "vestals" appeared in state.
A moment of silence, of restrained whispering, and one of them, a
tall, handsome girl with eyes literally filling half her forehead,
began approaching one guest after the other in perfect silence,
and rubbing their faces with her hand, leaving traces of sandal
and saffron powders. She glided towards us also, noiselessly
moving over the dusty road with her bare feet; and before we
realized what she was doing she had daubed me as well as the colonel
and Miss X - -, which made the latter sneeze and wipe her face for
at least ten minutes, with loud but vain utterances of indignation.
The Babu and Mulji offered their faces to the little hand, full
of saffron, with smiles of condescending generosity. But the
indomitable Narayan shrank from the vestal so unexpectedly at the
precise moment when, with fiery glances at him, she stood on tiptoe
to reach his face, that she quite lost countenance and sent a full
dose of powder over his shoulder, whilst he turned away from her
with knitted brow. Her forehead also showed several threatening
lines, but in a moment she overcame her anger and glided towards
Ram-Runjit-Das, sparkling with engaging smiles. But here she met
with still less luck; offended at once in his monotheism and his
chastity, the "God's warrior" pushed the vestal so unceremoniously
that she nearly upset the elaborate pot-decoration of the altar.
A dissatisfied murmur ran through the crowd, and we were preparing
to be condemned to shameful banishment for the sins of the warlike
Sikh, when the drums sounded again and the procession moved on.
In front of everyone drove the trumpeters and the drummers in a car
gilded from top to bottom, and dragged by bullocks loaded with
garlands of flowers; next after them walked a whole detachment
of pipers, and then a third body of musicians on horseback, who
frantically hammered huge gongs. After them proceeded the cortege
of the bridegroom's and the bride's relations on horses adorned
with rich harness, feathers and flowers; they went in pairs. They
were followed by a regiment of Bhils in full disarmour - because no
weapons but bows and arrows had been left to them by the English
Government. All these Bhils looked as if they had tooth-ache,
because of the odd way they have of arranging the ends of their
white pagris. After them walked clerical Brahmans, with aromatic
tapers in their hands and surrounded by the flitting battalion of
nautches, who amused themselves all the way by graceful glissades
and pas. They were followed by the lay Brahmans - the "twice born."
The bridegroom rode on a handsome horse; on both sides walked
two couples of warriors, armed with yaks' tails to wave the flies
away. They were accompanied by two more men on each side with
silver fans. The bridegroom's group was wound up by a naked
Brahman, perched on a donkey and holding over the head of the boy
a huge red silk umbrella. After him a car loaded with a thousand
cocoa-nuts and a hundred bamboo baskets, tied together by a red
rope. The god who looks after marriages drove in melancholy
isolation on the vast back of an elephant, whose mahout led him
by a chain of flowers. Our humble party modestly advanced just
behind the elephant's tail.
The performance of rites on the way seemed endless.
We had to stop before every tree, every pagoda, every sacred tank
and bush, and at last before a sacred cow. When we came back to
the house of the bride it was four in the afternoon, and we had
started a little after six in the morning. We all were utterly
exhausted, and Miss X - - literally threatened to fall asleep on
her feet. The indignant Sikh had left us long ago, and had persuaded
Mr. Y - - and Mulji - whom the colonel had nicknamed the "mute general"
- to keep him company. Our respected president was bathed in his
own perspiration, and even Narayan the unchangeable yawned and
sought consolation in a fan. But the Babu was simply astonishing.
After a nine hours' walk under the sun, with his head unprotected,
he looked fresher than ever, without a drop of sweat on his dark
satin-like forehead. He showed his white teeth in an eternal smile,
and chaffed us all, reciting the "Diamond Wedding" of Steadman.
We struggled against our fatigue in our desire to wit-ness the
last ceremony, after which the woman is forever cut off from the
external world. It was just going to begin; and we kept our eyes
and ears wide open.
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