By-Ways of Bombay Part 5

XVI.

GOVERNOR AND KOLI.

A FISHERMAN'S LEGEND.

A friend has supplied me with the following quaint history of a well-known Marathi ballad, which is widely chanted by the lower cla.s.ses in and around Bombay. Composed originally as a song of seed-time, it has now lost its primary significance and is sung by men at their work or by mothers hus.h.i.+ng their children in the dark alleys of the city. The verse runs thus:--

"Nakhwa Koli jat bholi, Ghara madhye dravya mahamar, Topiwalyane huk.u.m kela, Batliwalyachya barabar."

which may be rudely interpreted as follows:--

"Seaman Koli of simple mould Hath in his house great store of gold Lo! at the order of Topiwala Koli is peer of Batliwala"!

Now the word "Topiwala" means an Englishman; and "Batliwala" is a reference to the first Parsi Baronet, Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy: albeit the word is often used as a synonym for "millionaire" in much the same way as "Shankershet" has crept into Marathi parlance as the equivalent of "rich and prosperous."

The story, which the Kolis relate with pride, refers to the great wealth of Zuran Patel, the ancestor of Mahadev Dharma Patel who at this moment is the headman and leader of the Christian Kolis of Bombay.

That Zuran Patel was a rich man can be proved from the ancient doc.u.ments relating to the properties recently acquired by the Improvement Trust in and around Mandvi. For his name appears as chief owner in many of them; and it seems clear that the spoils which he gathered from the sea formed the basis of a goodly heritage upon dry land. He was an intimate friend of a certain Parsi millionaire, whom the composer of the ballad has supposed to be Sir Jamserji Jeejeebhoy, but who was more probably a member of the great family of Wadia,--the original s.h.i.+p-builders and dock-masters of the East India Company.

It chanced one day that the Governor of Bombay (perhaps Lord Falkland or Lord Elphinstone) wandered into Mandvi Koliwada and came suddenly upon the Parsi and the Koli Patel sitting in converse with one another. Up rose the Parsi millionaire and made obeisance; but the Koli quite indifferent and not recognising the solitary "Topiwala," remained in his seat. His Excellency's curiosity was aroused; and asking the Parsi the name of his scantily-clad comrade, he was informed that the man was a rich fisherman, who from time to time was accustomed to spread out his piles of gold and silver in the street to dry. "And" added the Parsi, "so simple and guileless is he that the people walk over the glittering heap with wax on their feet, thus robbing him in open daylight; and yet he does nought, believing that the pile of wealth must shrink even as his piles of fish shrink, when placed in the sun to dry." Interested in the man's personality, the Governor asked the Parsi to introduce the Patel to him, and enquired whether he would grant some portion of his wealth to Government. "Yes, as much as the Government may desire" was the ready answer. "But" quoth his Excellency, "what will you ask of Government in return?" "Only this," answered the Koli, "that Government will grant me the exclusive privilege of roofing my house with silver tiles."

After some little discussion, a compromise was effected, and Zuran Patel received permission, as a special mark of favour, to place a few copper tiles above his house.

The house in Dongri Street, where Mahadev Dharma Patel now resides, is reputed to be the identical house upon which the copper tiles were once fixed. But many alterations have taken place, and the tiles have disappeared. For many years, so runs the tale, they were preserved as a sort of family escutcheon, being taken off the roof and fixed in a conspicuous position in the wall. Perhaps they were stolen, perhaps they were worn away by constant polis.h.i.+ng, who can say? They have pa.s.sed beyond the realm of fact to that of legend. Suffice it to say that the Kolis firmly believe the whole story, and add that Zuran Patel's house was the only real strong-house in Bombay at that epoch, the walls being built upon a framework of iron girders and the cellar, containing the piles of silver, being stouter than a modern safe. It seems not improbable that the old cellars of Mandvi Kolivada were originally the colouring-ponds of the fishermen, which, as building progressed and crowding set in, were enclosed with tiles and brick and mortar and utilised as store-rooms.

Such is the history of the quaint ballad of the English Governor, the Parsi millionaire, and the Koli Patel. It seems to us to crystallise the honourable connection and friends.h.i.+p which has existed from the earliest days of British rule in Bombay between the aboriginal-fishermen, the Parsi pioneers of commerce and the English Government in the person of its highest representative. It recalls to us the days of siege and warfare when the Governor of the struggling settlement sought the help of the st.u.r.dy fishermen and when Rustom Dorabji put himself at their head, formed them into a rudely-drilled corps, and drove the Sidi off the island. It recalls the action of the Honourable Thomas Hodges in their behalf a century and a half ago, and the subsequent confirmation of their ancient rights by Sir James Fergusson and Sir Bartle Frere. And lastly it represents a belief, which has attained almost the sanct.i.ty of religion in the heart of Kolidom, that between themselves and the King's representative in Bombay there exists a bond of good-feeling and respect which dating as it does from 1675 has been welded firm by time and shall never be broken.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Koli.]

XVII.

THE TRIBE ERRANT.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Deccani Fruit-seller.]

In the more thickly-populated quarters of the city of Bombay--quarters that are rarely explored by the European, a succession of criers and hawkers pa.s.s through the streets from morn till eve and sometimes far into the night. In the early morning, before the house-sparrow has chirped himself and his family into wakefulness, you catch the doleful and long-drawn cry of the early Fakir or Mahomedan beggar, whose object is not so much to wake the Faithful and bid them remember "the prayer that is better than sleep"

as to be the earliest bird to catch the mouthful of Moslem charity. Watch him as he awakens the echoes of the quarter by repeating in the most melancholy tones Ali's famous gift of his sons to the beggars of the Hegira or some other great tradition of the generosity of Ali, set to verse for the special behoof of his brotherhood by some needy poetaster like the famous n.a.z.ir of Agra. He is followed by another who chants in deep ba.s.s tones a legend explanatory of the virtues of the great saint of Baghdad.

But Ali is the favourite of the beggar-tribe, because forsooth the beggar runs no risk in singing his praises. If one glorify the other three Khalifas in a Sunni quarter, it is well with one, but not so in an area devoted to the s.h.i.+a population: and so the beggar chooses Ali's name as a convenient and fitting means of opening the purse-strings of both the great Musulman sects.

As the day dawns, st.u.r.dy Hyderabad chorus-singers pa.s.s along the streets chanting the "prayers for the Prophet" in voices that awaken the denizens of the dark garrets and hidden courts of the teeming chals. And after them come the beggars of that cla.s.s which is the peculiar product of Mahomedan life in Bombay. As the majority of the middle-cla.s.s Musulmans and all the poorer cla.s.s live in chals or "malas," each family occupying one or at most two rooms in a building, the pa.s.sages, corridors and staircases of these human warrens become the chosen paths of those astute mendicants who disdain not, when chance offers, to turn their hand to a little quiet thieving. Even as they fare upon their rounds, you catch the welcome call of the vendor of "jaleibi malpurwa," who sells wheat-cakes fried rarely in _ghi_ and generally in oil, and the "jaleibi" a sort of macaroni fried likewise in oil. These crisp cakes are a favourite breakfast-dish of the early-rising factory-operative, who finds himself thus saved the drudgery of cooking when he is barely awake and when moreover he is in a hurry to reach the scene of his daily labours. The vendor of these dainties is truly "a study in oils," and his hands, which serve the purpose of knife and fork for the separation of his customers' demands, drip--but not with myrrh.

Though a vendor of oleaginous dainties, he is himself far from well- nourished. You can see his collar-bone and count his ribs and almost mark the beatings of his poor profit-counting heart. A dirty dhoti girds his loins, and upon his head is a turban of the same questionable hue which serves both as a head-dress and as a support for his tray of cakes. If a Musulman, he wears only a skullcap, a s.h.i.+rt or jacket and a pair of soiled baggy trousers. Once he has called, the jaleibi-vendor has a habit of presenting himself every day at the very hour when the children of the house begin to clamour for food, and calmly defies the angry order of the householder not to appear unless bidden.

Next comes the vendor of "chah, chah garam, chaaah garaaam" or hot tea, who is unusually an Irani. For having introduced tea into Western Asia the inhabitants of the land of "the gul and the bulbul" claim the secret of making a perfect infusion of the celestial leaves. He is no longer the embodiment of Tom Moore's Heroic Guebre, this tea-vending Irani, and his ap.r.o.n forbids the suggestion that he has any a.s.sociation with Gao, the subverter of a monarchy and the slayer of the tyrant Zuhhac. He has sadly degenerated from the type of his Guebre ancestor. If he owns a shop he combines the sale of other commodities with the tea business. He has an ice-cream, a sherbet and a "cold-drink" department; and he touts for customers, singing the praises of hot and cold beverages in a language redolent of Persian. It does not pay him to use fresh tea-leaves from Kangra or China; so he purchases his stock from small traders, who in their turn obtain it as a bargain from butlers or stewards. The latter dry them after one infusion by their masters and, mixing some unused leaves, make up a fresh box and dispose of it in the markets. As for soda-water and allied beverages, he gets his supply from the cheapest manufacturers; while his ice-cream contains probably more water than milk and is flavoured, not with vanilla, pine-apple or orange, but with some article which he declares is a complete antidote against internal discomfort. He prepares his tea _a la Russe_ in a brightly-polished samovar which compares favourably with his tea-cups and country-made tin spoons. He charges his customer from two to four pice for this delightful mixture which has a flavour of hot-water and iron-rust rather than of tea.

Here too comes the itinerant fruit-seller, very often a woman, who hawks fruit of all kinds from the superior mango to the acid "karaunda" of the Ghats. For the sale of country-mangoes a place of vantage is required; so she takes up a strong position on the roadside or on the doorstep of a house and sets to work to pick out her best fruit and place it on the top of her basket. She is generally a Deccani, either Musulman or Hindu, varying in age from 20 to 40 and is fully capable of conciliating the Lord of the Bombay pavements, when he somewhat roughly commands her to move on.

"Jemadar Saheb" she calls him; and if this flattery is insufficient she offers one of her ripest mangoes with a glance that he cannot resist. It is too much for the sepoy: he smiles and tramps off, and she holds her position undisturbed. If she be a Hindu, you will probably notice the bright-red mark on her forehead, joining brow to brow, or, in the words of a Persian poet, uniting two Parthian or Tartar bows into Kama's Long-bow. The male mango-hawker is a Deccan Hindu or Musulman gardener who purchases a stock of showy inferior fruit from the wholesale dealers. After the mango season is over he becomes a vendor of Poona figs or Nagpur oranges. He is often a small, dark, muscular man who began life as a day-labourer in the highly-cultivated fields of the Deccan and has journeyed to the city with his modest savings tightly tied up in his waist-cloth in the hope of eventually cutting as big a figure in the village home as does his friend Arjuna, who some years ago returned to his village as a capitalist and is even now the bosom-friend of the Patel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Coffee-seller.]

The itinerant coffee-vendor is a characteristic feature of the Musulman quarters of Bombay. Of Arab or Egyptian origin, this coffee-trade immediately proved attractive to the Musulman public and, inasmuch as it requires little stock or capital, has been a boon to many a poor Mahomedan anxious to turn an honest penny. The "kahwe-wala" has no cry and yet manages to proclaim his presence by sounds which are audible in the inmost darkness of the chals. He is the beetle of the pedlar tribe. He does not sing, he does not cry--he stridulates. Carrying in his hand a large number of small coffee-cups, fitted one within another, he strikes them together like a string of castanets, while in the left hand he bears a portable stove-like article on which rests his tin or copper kettle.

His entire stock-in-trade, including the ground coffee in his kettle, does not as a rule exceed five rupees in value. The "kahwe-wala" belongs to three nationalities, Arab, Negro and Native Indian. If an Arab, he may be a disabled sailor or the retired body-servant of some Arab merchant; if an Indian, he is usually an old resident of the city, experienced in the wiles of the urban population and sometimes perhaps a protege of the local police. He has a perfect acquaintance with the intricacies of Bombay galis and back-slums; he is a creature of jovial temper, being hail-fellow-well- met with most of his customers, and he is not a grasping creditor. His account, which he notes down on whitewashed walls, sometimes reaches the sum of Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 where thriftless wives are concerned. Generally the score is paid: but if it be s.h.i.+rked or disputed, he never thinks of invoking legal aid for the recovery of his money. He has an abiding faith in the doctrine of "Live and let live."

XVIII.

THE PANDU-LENA CAVES.

A NASIK PILGRIMAGE.

Nasik! What a story the name evokes! Nasik the Lotus-city, Nasik the home of G.o.ds; who has borrowed her name from the nine hills which lay within the compa.s.s of her sacred walls. For we like not, nor do we believe, that alternative derivation of the name from "Nasika," a nose, in allusion to the fate which here overtook the demon Shurpanakhi. It is altogether too savage an appellation for a city whose purity was established in the "Krita Yuga," and whose fame is coeval with that of the great protagonists of Hindu myth and epic. The great city of religion in the West stood upon seven hills, the holy city of the East stood upon nine; and the famous rivers which flow past them whisper in each case of a heritage of undying renown. Fancy hand in hand perhaps with a substratum of historical truth has discovered traces of Rama's chequered life, of Sita's devotion in many spots within the limits of Nasik. The Forest of Austerity (Tapovan), Panchvati and Ramsej or Ram's seat, that strangely-shaped hill fortress to the north of Nasik, are but three of the holy places which appeal so forcibly to the hearts of the people as the visible legacies of divine life on earth.

But to us the temples and the sacred pools seem nothing by comparison with the mighty monuments of Buddhism, which local wiseacres have erroneously named the Pandu-Lena or caves of the Pandavas. We drive out in the fresh morning air along the trunk road, which extends southwards of the holy city like a grey ribbon streaked by two parallel lines of lighter colour where the wheels of the bullock-carts have ground the hard metal into dust; and hard by the fifth milestone we come face to face with three stark hills, standing solitary out of the plain. A congeries of Mhars' huts fringing the roadside marks the most convenient spot for alighting, whence we strike across the belt of level land which divides the highway from the foot of the easternmost of the triad of hills. "Trirashmi" or Triple Sunbeam is the name by which the hill is known in seven of the cave-inscriptions, and is held by the learned Pundit who wrote the _Gazetter_ account to refer to its pyramidal or triple fire-tongue shape. But is it not conceivable that the hand which carved the earliest of those priceless inscriptions desired to designate the triad of contiguous hills as "the tripla ray," and not the eastern hill alone in which the caves have been hewn? Who can tell?

When we recall the almost unbroken chain of caves,--the s.h.i.+vner, the Ganesh, the Manmoda and the Tulja,--which surround Junner, we suspect that the original intention of those primeval devotees was to carve dwellings and chapels in all three hills, which thus would have surely formed a triple beam of light in honour of the great Master, whom an English missionary has characterized as "one of the grandest examples of self- denial and love to humanity which the world has ever produced." A narrow and devious path, worn by the feet of wors.h.i.+pers, leads upward to the broad terrace which fronts the caves. Here you are sheltered from the wind, and peace inviolate broods upon these dwellings of a vanished people; but turn your steps round the western corner and the boisterous breeze will quickly chase you back behind the sheltering bulwarks of the hill.

Of the twenty-four caves all except the eighteenth or chapel-cave were originally _layanas_ or monastic dwellings and contained no images when first their makers gazed upon their work and found it good. But long after their earliest inmates had conquered Desire and had gained Nirvana for their souls the followers of the Mahayana school from Northern India took the dwellings for their own use and carved out of the austere walls of their precursors' cells those images and idols which are now the chief feature of the caves. Buddha seated upon the lion-throne and the figures of his Bodhisattvas with their fly-whisks are symbols of a later and more idolatrous form of Buddhism and are several centuries later than the days (b. c. 110) when the great monk (Sramana) fas.h.i.+oned the nineteenth cave in the reign of Krishna the Satakarni. Nor has Vandalism in the guise of the Mahayana school been alone at work here. The tenth cave once contained a relic-shrine or _dagoba_ similar to the relic-shrines at Karli, s.h.i.+vner and Ganesh Lena; but in its place now stands a hideous figure of Bhairav aflame with red-lead, and nought remains to testify to the former presence of the shrine save the Buddhist T capital, the umbrellas and the flags which surmounted it. The eleventh cave bears traces of Jain sacrilege in the blue figure of the Tirthankar or hierach who sits cross-legged in the back wall and in the figure of Ambika on the right. But the most conspicuous example of the alteration of ancient monuments to suit the needs of late comers is the twentieth cave, where the colossal Buddha, who muses with his attendants in the dense darkness of the inner shrine, has been smeared with black pigment and adorned with gold tinsel and is proudly introduced to you by the local _pujari_ as Dharmaraja, the eldest of the five Pandavas, the surrounding Bodhisattvas being metamorphosed into Nakula, Sahadeva, Bhima, Arjuna, Krishna and Draupadi, the joint wife of the five! Alas for "the Perfect One" in whose honour, as the inscription tells us, "the wife of the great war-lord Bhavagopa" commenced building the cave in B.C. 50. He has long been forgotten and the hand which he uplifts in token of the Four Verities, discovered after great agony and temptation beneath the Tree of Wisdom, is now pointed out as the wrathful hand of the demi-G.o.d of the Mahabharata. Once and once only in these later days has the Buddha evinced his displeasure at the modernization of his ancient shrine.

About the year 1880 came hither a Bairagi, naked and wild, who walled off a corner of the cave and raised a clay altar to his puny G.o.d. Sacrilege intolerable! And the Buddha through the hand of an avaricious Koli smote him unto death and hurled his naked corpse down hill. The t.i.tanic figure is still wors.h.i.+pped by the Hindus: flowers and lighted lamps are daily offered up to him by the ignorant Hindu priest; but he sits immutable, inarticulate, content in the knowledge that to them that have understanding his real message of humanitarianism speaks through the clouds of falsehood which now enwrap his Presence.

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 wors.h.i.+p 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-cla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 p.r.o.ngs 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 p.r.o.ne 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, Safa.r.s.e ghar ko to phire, Aman-chaman khuda rakhe."

Which, being interpreted, runs:--"Wheresoever thou mayst halt, may G.o.d protect thee! When thou hast returned, may G.o.d give thee His peace!" The singer was invisible, but around the words of her song one could conjure up pictures of the st.u.r.dy serang asleep in the foc'sle of some westward-flying steamer, or haply of the bearded trader afare through the pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage: 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.