Chapter XIV: A Konkan Legend (4)

Much might be written of the strange medley of creeds which are symbolised in these caves. The Nagdevas with their serpent-canopies, which are relics of a primordial Sun and Serpent worship totally foreign to pure Buddhism, appear side by side with the Swastika or Life-symbol of the greater creed, with the lotus and other symbols of a phallic cult, and as in the small cistern near cave 14 with the female face representing the low-class Hindu belief in the divinity of the smallpox. Jain images of a later school of Buddhism, dating from the 5th or 6th century after Christ, have helped to rob these homes of Buddhist mendicants of their original simplicity and severity, and have rendered it almost impossible for any save the wise men of the East to read their chequered history aright. In almost the last cave we entered, where two standing figures on the right and left mount guard over the well-known image of the Master, our footsteps roused a large female rat and her young, which crawled up the silent seated figure and took refuge on the very crown of its head. Sanctuary! So we turned aside to scrutinise the strange symbolical figures of the twenty-fourth cave and the stories of the chaste and unchaste wives which are hewn in the ornamental gateway of the third.

From the terrace in front of the caves a fine panorama greets the eye. Below commences the wide plain which creeps northwards to the rugged hills comprising the weird couch-shaped summit of Ramsej and the solitary cone of the Chambhar Hill, embosoming the great Jain caves of the 12th century. Beyond the Chambhar cone climb heavenwards the castellated pinnacles of the Chandor range, mist-shrouded in this monsoon season. In the nearer distance the primeval Brahman settlement of Govardhan sleeps amid her mango-groves, and opposite to it the modern Christian village of Sharanpur marks the threshold of that tract of fair woodland and fairer garden which is Nasik's pride. Here and there a red roof catches the sun's rays and shews a splash of orange amid the green; but save for this the picture has but two tints, the warm green of the plain country in the foreground and the grey of the mighty mountain-range which stands sentinel behind it. Your feet rest upon soil hallowed by the memories of two thousand years, upon ground which bears the sign-manual of early and late Buddhist, of Jain and lastly of Maratha, who used the hill as a muster-ground of warriors and bored holes in the graven images for the tethering of his cattle and steeds. By some divine decree "the imperial banditti" kept their impious hands from the famous inscriptions which are the real glory of these caves and form the connecting-link between ourselves and that great king whose face was "as the sun-kissed lotus, whose army drank the waters of three oceans," Shri Gautamiputra the Satakarni.

And so ends our morning's exploration. One last visit to the silent keepers of these messages from dead monarchs--and we pass down to the high road, whence we look back once more upon Trirashmi, the casket of jewels without price, and her twin sisters gleaming in the morning light like the triple prongs of some giant Trident set there by Nature in honour of the great apostle of Humanity.

XIX.

FATEH MUHAMMAD.

We had wandered off the main thoroughfare, where the trams, hurtling past the Irani's tea shop, drown from time to time the chatter of Khoda Behram's clientele; and skirting a group of Mahomedans who nightly sit in solemn conclave, some on the 'otlas,' others on charpoys or chairs placed well in the fairway of traffic, we reached at length a sombre and narrow 'gali,' seemingly untenanted save by the shadows. Here a sheeted form lay prone on the roadside; there a flickering lamp disclosed through the half-open door a mother crooning to her child, while her master smoked the hubble-bubble with the clay bowl and ruminated over the events of the day,--the villainy of the landlord who contemplated the raising of the rent and the still greater rascality of the landlord's 'bhaya' who insisted upon his own 'dasturi' as well. Here a famished cat crouched over a pile of garbage hard by the sweeper's 'gali'; there on the opposite side of the road a Marwadi with the features of Mephistopheles dozed over his account book; and a little further away a naked child was dipping her toes in a pool of sullage water that had dripped from the broken pipe athwart the house wall. Darkness reigned on the upper floors. At intervals a faint glimmer might be discerned behind the sodden 'chicks' which shrouded the windows; and once the stillness was broken by a voice humming a refrain from an Indian drama:

"Jahan jahan mukam rahe, amne jhulakiram rahe,
Safarse ghar ko to phire, Aman-chaman khuda rakhe."

Which, being interpreted, runs:--"Wheresoever thou mayst halt, may God protect thee! When thou hast returned, may God give thee His peace!" The singer was invisible, but around the words of her song one could conjure up pictures of the sturdy serang asleep in the foc'sle of some westward-flying steamer, or haply of the bearded trader afare through the passes of the North-West Frontier, the while his wife in the small upper room waited with prayers for his home-coming, even as the lady of Ithaca waited for the man of many wiles.

At length we reached a small doorway which opened into a cavern black as Erebus. For a moment we paused undecided; and then out of the darkness crawled an aged Mahomedan bearing a tiny cocoanut-oil lamp. Lifting it above his head he pointed silently to a rickety staircase in the far corner, up which we groped our way with the help of a rope pendent from an upper beam. Up and up we mounted, now round a sharp corner, now down a narrow passage: the stairs swayed and shook; the air was heavy with a mixture of frankincense and sullage; until at last we crawled through a trap-door that opened as by magic, and found ourselves at our journey's end.

Imagine a small attic, some fifteen feet by ten, under the very eaves of the 'chal,' filled with the smoke of frankincense so pungent that the eyes at once commenced to water nor ceased until we were once again in the open air. In one corner was spread a coarse sheet with a couple of pillows against the wall, upon which the silent Mahomedan bade us by a sign recline; in the opposite corner a 'panja', a species of altar smothered in jasmine wreaths and surmounted by a bunch of peacock's feathers; and immediately in front of this an earthen brazier of live charcoal. Behind the brazier sat three persons, Fateh Muhammad, a Musalman youth with curiously large and dreamy eyes, and two old Musalman beldames, either of whom might have sat as a model for the witch of Endor. The three sat unmoved, blinking into the live charcoal, save at rare intervals when the elder of the two women cast a handful of fragrance upon the brazier and wrapped us all in a fresh pall of smoke which billowed round the room and lapped the interstices of the rotten tiles. Only the peacock's eyes in the corner never lost their lustre, staring wickedly through the smoke-wreaths like the head of Argus.

Then on a sudden the youth shivered, fell forward with his face over the brazier, and rose again to a sitting posture with eyes closed and every muscle in his body taut as though stricken by a sudden paralysis. "The spirit has entered," whispered my friend, and even as he spoke I saw the youth's throat working as if an unseen hand were kneading the muscles, and forth from his lips echoed the words "La illaha illallah illahi laho." He was deep in a trance, the curtains of his eyes half-dropped, looking as one that is dead; and the voice with which he spoke was not the voice of Fateh Muhammad, "La illaha illallah illahi laho"! and as the words died away one that was present passed two green limes into his left hand and asked for a sign. "I am fain to journey to Lahore, starting on Tuesday next. Will it be well," he said; and after a pause came the answer "Set not forth on Tuesday, for the stars be against thy journeying; but send thine agent on Thursday and go thyself, if need be, two days later." As the message died away, the trap-door in the floor was slowly tilted upwards and through the opening crawled an obvious member of the Dhobi class. He slid forward almost to the feet of the dreaming youth and, placing as before two green limes in his hand, spoke saying "Master, my wife hath written from our country, bidding me to go unto her nor tarry by the road. But there is work toward here and the purse is light. Is it that I should go?" "La illaha illallah illahi laho!" "Aye, go unto her, lest evil haply befall thee; for much is there that is hid from thine eyes."

Thus the seance went forward. For twenty minutes or more odd waifs and strays of humanity crawled in through the trap-door, obtained their message of good or ill, and departed into the shadows as silently as they had come. Among them were several women, one of whom sought a cure for her sick child, whimpering over the symptoms of his malady. "Meningitis, I expect," muttered my friend the doctor; but the answer came swift and sure "Bind thou the 'tawiz' round his brows and carry him to the shrine of Miran Datar, whence cometh thy help." "La illaha illallah illahi laho!"

The end came suddenly. After the last visitor had vanished through the floor there was dead silence for three minutes, while Fateh Muhammad wrestled with the spirit within him; and then with chest heaving and hands convulsively grasping the heavy air, he fell prone upon his face and lay still. The two old women moved forward and commenced making passes over his body, murmuring the while some charm, and as they waved the seven-knotted handkerchief above his head he regained consciousness and sat slowly up, "breathing like one that hath an evil dream" and bearing upon his features the signs of deathly fatigue. By this time the attic was almost clear of smoke; the guttering wick of the only oil-lamp was nearly burnt through, and Fateh Muhammad was fain to sleep. Wherefore we thanked him for permitting us this glance behind the curtain of his daily life, then crawled through the trap, slid down the reeking staircase and gained the street. One last glance, as my eyes reached the floor-level of the trap, showed me that the room was untenanted, save by the prostrate form of the visionary, above whom the eyes of the peacock still glinted with something of mockery in their blue depths.

As we passed homewards down the street we heard the woman in the upper chamber still singing her prayer, but with a note of hope in its cadence:--

"O dilruba tu gam na kho, khuda hamen baham kare"
"Janejahan bhulo nahi, karim sada karam kare."
"Grieve not, heart of my heart, for God will
order our meeting! Soul of the world,
forget not; and may the peace of God be
on us twain."

Perchance she also, like Fateh Muhammad's guests, had caught a message of good hap from out the darkness.

And so back to the light and the noise of the City's greatest artery.

XX.

THE TILAK RIOTS.

A REMINISCENCE.

(_Written August_. 1908)

Affairs in the City may now be regarded as having resumed their normal course, and the chance of further disorder seems for the present to have been obviated. One of the most curious features of the disturbances was the difference of feeling exhibited by the two classes of mill-operatives, namely the Ghatis and the Malwanis. Of the whole mill-population one would have assumed that the Kunbis from the Deccan, where Tilak is stated to have so great a following, would have shown a greater disposition to riot in consequence of his arrest and conviction than the men from Ratnagiri. And yet so far as I could judge the Ghatis were far less interested in the trial and were much less disposed to express their resentment than the latter class, which comprises one or two extremely hot-headed and uncompromising individuals. The Ghatis of Sewri indeed at the very height of the riots, informed an Englishman with whom they are familiar, that they would sooner die for him than do him any harm, and their words carried home the conviction that they felt no personal sorrow at Tilak's well-deserved fate and that they would be ready in an emergency, as they have often been in past history, to stand staunchly by the side of any individual whom they know and who has been kind to them. The attitude of the Ratnagiri hands must in my opinion have been engendered by continuous and careful tuition; and this was particularly the case in the Currey Road and Delisle Road areas where agents, belonging to their own native district, had been suborned by the seditionary party to stir up trouble.

No less remarkable was the quaint juxtaposition during the height of the riots of seething disorder and the quiet prosecution of their daily avocations by the bulk of the people. An officer of one of the regiments quartered on the City during the trial in the High Court gave expression to this fact in the following words:--"Warfare I understand; but this sort of business beats me altogether. At the top of the street there is a native 'tamasha' with people singing and beating tom-toms; half-way down the street there are stone-throwing and firing, and at the bottom of the street there are people, Europeans and Natives, shopping!" He was struck, as I was, by the incongruity of the whole business. At Jacob's Circle there was a great display of military and magisterial strength. Tommy Atkins had taken up a strong position at the corner of Clerk Road; sentries paced up and down by day and night; machine guns gaped upon the fountain erected to the memory of Le Grand Jacob. At intervals a squadron of cavalry dashed into the open, halted for a space, and then as suddenly disappeared; and they were followed by motor cars and carriages containing Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Police Subordinates, Special Magistrates and miscellaneous European sightseers. All the pomp and circumstance of Law and Order were represented there, and there could scarcely have been a greater display of armed force, more secret consultations, more wild dashes hither and thither, more troubled parleying, if the entire City north of Jacob's Circle had been in flames. And yet behind it and around it the daily life of the people moved forward in its accustomed channel, The Bhandari's liquor-shop at the corner had its full complement of patrons, and the Bhandari himself might be seen pulling out handfuls of thirst-producing parched grain for those of his customers who desired a relish with their liquor; members of that degraded class which follows one of the immemorial vices of the East wandered round the Marwaris' shops, begging and clapping their hands in the manner peculiar to them; and across the diameter of the Circle strayed a group of Barots--those strange semi-gipsy looking men from Kathiawar who act as priests and magicians to the Bhangi population. Seeing the military and police they halted for a moment and gave one time to have, a word with them:--"Whither go ye?" we asked, and they replied that they were bound to the big Bhangi settlement that lies not far from the Circle.

One of them carried a "bina," a second an ordinary school-slate covered with crude cabalistic signs and a third a rude book, something like a Vani's "chopda," filled with Marathi characters, which doubtless plays a part in the fortune-telling and spirit-scaring that form the stock-in-trade of these wandering hierophants. Hardly had they disappeared than four Sadhus hove in sight. One of them, who was smeared with ashes from head to foot, the lobes of whose ears had been pierced and dragged down till they nearly touched his shoulders, and who wore an enormous rosary of Rudraksha berries, acted as the spokesman of the party and stated that they were on their way to Nasik. They had come from Benares, he said, and had spent a week in the shady compound of the Mahalaksmi temple, where all the Bairagis, Gosavis and Fakirs of the Indian continent from time to time congregate. "Do you walk to Nasik or go by rail" we asked. "By rail" replied the silver-man. "But surely the true Sadhu should walk, taking no heed of horse-vehicle or fire-carriage," whereat the little fat ascetic with the gourd smiled pleasantly and made some remark to the effect that all methods of conveyance are permitted to the truly devout.

So they passed down Ripon Road towards the heart of the City. Followed a couple of Muhammadan Kasais driving a small flock of sheep, dyed pink and blue in patches, which they urged forward in approved Native fashion by driving the fingers into the base of the hindmost animal's spine; and after them wandered a Syed in a faded green silk robe and cap, carrying the inevitable peacock feather brush, which plays so large a part in exorcism and divination. Later in the day a Hindu lady-doctor hurried past on her way home, and four youths of the student-class, who had left their legal studies in the Fort to see what was toward in the northern portion of the Island. A Municipal sweeper lurched across the open and proceeded to spend twenty minutes in brushing the grating of a drain, leaving the accumulated filth of the adjoining gutter to fester and pollute the surroundings; and two elderly cooly-women, each carrying a phenomenal head-load of dung- cakes, becoming suddenly aware of the presence of troops and thereby struck with terror, collided violently with one another and shot the entire contents of their baskets on to the road. This caused some amusement to the passers-by, particularly to a Pathan who had just taken a very complete bath under one of the taps of the memorial fountain, but the trouble was soon mended by a small boy who, bribed by the offer of one dung cake, helped the old ladies to repack their burdens and replace them on their heads. Next came a swarthy gentleman from Palanpur, who said he was a hawker of glass sugar-bowls, and produced one bowl without a top as proof of his profession. He struck me as being uncommonly and perhaps designedly vacant in speech and appearance, and seemed to have no stock of glassware whatever. I am still wondering whether that topless bowl was really his own or whether he may not have filched it from some convenient dispense-khana.

Meanwhile the Irani at the corner where the trams halt did a roaring trade. He must have boiled his tea-leaves four and five times over in order to supply the constant demands for "adha kop chha-a," preferred by casual visitors who had come up out of the City to see what was going on. Memons, Bohras, Khojas, Jews, Eurasians and Europeans all patronized his shop during the days of tumult, and the amount of soda-water, "pick-me-up" and raspberryade which was consumed was phenomenal. It was as good as a play to watch the constant stream of people who came out to have a look at the soldiers and to hear their remarks on the situation. "I have heard," one of them would begin,--and then followed a string of the wildest bazaar- rumours, interspersed with many a "tobah" (fie) "iman-se" (honestly or truly) or "mag kai" (what happened next), which apparently produced such a hunger and thirst that the Irani, thanking his stars for the outbreak of disorder, had to ransack all his cases for comestibles, aerated waters and tea. They sat in deep attention when Motor Car No. O swung out of De Lisle Road and halted near the fountain; they watched with animation the Punjab cavalry trot homewards to their lines after a scurry in Kalachauki; and they burst into merriment when a refractory mule deposited one of the Northampton Regiment plump in the muddiest portion of the Circle. They had a thoroughly interesting week, these sight-seers; but not half so interesting as he did, who watched them and chatted with them and spent hours interrogating the human flotsam and jetsam of this City of a myriad castes.

End of Project Gutenberg's By-Ways of Bombay, by S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.