ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 16, 19 January 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE.

DAY IN A GARRISON TOWN.

HOT BATS AND WONDERFUL NIGHTS.

LONGINGS FOR HOME. I

(By IRIS PORTAL.)

(No. II.) Day dawns, and from my bed in the garden 1 watch the grey sky blushing. A niglit of alaick lias just passed, and the scene is laid in a big garrison town on the edge of the great plain of the Deccan, above Bombay. Our socalled "cold weather" (never below 75 degrees in the shade) has come to an end, and hot weather habits are being resumed. Thus everyone sleeps in their gardens, and the days are regulated to attain as much fresh air as possible wheu the sun is at his least strength. As the sky lightens, all the familiar sounds of everyday life break in on the stillness. Trumpets call reveille from the Lines,, and the distant barking of dogs shatters the breathless quiet that comes before dawn. The crows perch iu a row on the verandah rail, and croak discordant and disgraceful conversation. Soon a respectful voice murmurs from the bungalow: "Sahib, Sahib, it is six o'clock," and the head of the house rises reluctantly to get ready for parade. I lie and watch the inexorable sun striding up the sky until a finger of light touches my bed. Then, after reconnoitring from under my mosquito net to see if all is clear I make a dash for the house. As I dress, I watch the gardener very slowly pulling up weeds one by one, and conversing with several hooded figures crouching beside him, and I make a mental note to speak to him again about bringing all hie family to talk to him while he works. I know he will look at me sorrowfully and say: "Memsahib, I am an old man and very poor, and your honour is my father and mother," with which irrevelant remark he will wander away looking desperately hurt, and next day they will all be there again!

The Heat of the Day.

Then is a jingle of accoutrements as Zulu, the big Australian horse, is brought round ready for parade, and I watch him carry his master out of the gate and away to the parade ground. Soon I am booted and spurred, and go out to the stables, where three , impatient creatures are fidgetting under the red glory of a gold mohur tree. The Rajput orderly salutes smartly, and I give orders as to which I shall ride. I am very gently and courteously corrected. "The memsahib is not strong enough to ride the big English horse. The memsahib will ride the little polo mare, and the young, untrained mare will go out in hand." This is the best part of the day. The wind is actually fresh and cool, and

the depressing lethargy that so often weighs on the mind and body is lifted as one canters round the dusty parade ground. In the distance the squadrons wheel and turn, recruits are put over jumps, and here and there small bodies of men practise sword and lane* exercises. The little mare tittups on a loose rein, and one feels it will be almost possible to have an appetite for breakfast. But by nine o'clock eyes are tired by the strong sun, and throat parched, and the only thing possible to do is to drink and drink and eat a few oranges. A bath, and a change into cool, loose clothes gives fresh strength to take up the only too quickly completed occupations of the morning. I drag out my inspection of the kitchen, [ talk for ages to the ponies being groomed under the gold mohur tree, very slowly I measure out flour, sugar and tea to the head servant.

A hot wind has arisen and sweeps through the bungalow, scattering dust and discomfort, so I close all doors and windows, save the one over which hangs a grass screen, perpetually damp, which cools the blast of air that comes through it. It is too hot to go out and a paralysing laziness prevents one from sewing or working in any way. Even when reading the mind will not concentrate, and when writing the pen slips in hot, sticky fingers. Outside, dust devils swirl up the paths, a few unhappy flowers droop wanly in the beds, and only the gold mohur trees defy the sun with a blaze of living colour as ardent as his own rays. One is too apt to sprawl limply in a chair, thinking of the pale, cold beauty of March in England, imagining "Daffodils that come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty," primroses and white violeta in the hedgerows, and the pink cheeks and laughing voices of English children.

Cure of Work. There is only one cure for such vain imaginings—hard work. After lunch a blessed sleep, so marvellous when you fall into it, so horrible when you awake, with a mouth like a limekiln. In the evening, out come the ponies again, without whom life would be unbearable, and one day it is polo, and another a long ride over the ford on to the higher land, on the other bank of the river, where there is a cool wind when the sun sets. We ride home at

dusk, hats off and the breeze playing on our hot foreheads. That day-long enemy, the sun, has turned from an inexorable tyrant to a langorous glory dying behind the hills. One last canter down to the ford, and so home through the regimental lines, where the men sit at ease outside their quarters, smoking the evening hookah, and dogs and curious little children come out to watch us pass.

Because of our exercise and the good company of the horse people we go to our evening meal peaceful and contented, relaxed and comforted by bath and change of clothes. Wβ laugh at the mosquitoes and mop our brows cheerfully in the heat of the oil lamp. Now the moon has' risen, and the shadows are very black against her clear bands of light Those wonderful Indian nights, when the air is like a black velvet curtain, poignantly scented, and the most ordinary sounds seem distant and full of romance and elusive promise! And so to bed, and our last thought always is "One day nearer our next leave Home." But when we are Home, there are a few things we shall miss. We shall listen in vain for the soft whinny and movements of the ponies in their stalls, the Sealyham pup growling at the shadows thrown by the moon, the distant quavering song of a belated wayfarer, trumpets from the Lines calling the Last Post in their unearthly silver tones that always bring a lump to the throat—all the good-night sounds that we take to bed with us at the end of an Indian Day.