THE INDIAN DHOBI.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12536, 25 June 1901, Page 9

THE INDIAN DHOBI.

In one aspect —his official one, so to speak, and the one most familiar to AngloIndians and all visitors to the great purple East—the Indian dhoti is the meekest of men (writes M. A. Rutberfurd in the ‘‘English Magazine”). With a mildness truly amazing to those who know his brother craftsmen of other lands, he will submit without a murmur to indignities, reproaches and fines. For a modest and comprehensive emolument of from fifteen to twenty-five shillings per month he will wash, iron, and starch (providing his own materials) for a family where babies are the most prominent members, and in which muslin dresses and white shirts, not to mention such trifling items as tennisflannels, white uniforms, and mosquitocurtains, form component parts. “ Oh, that dhobi!” says his mistress in toneO which all too thinly veil the unspeakable} “Plenty bad dhobiman,” echoes his mistress’s ayah ; “ Pine the brute!” says his master, constituting himself a court of appeal on hearsay evidence; while the dhobi smiles his gentle, deprecatory smile, and, with joined palms, protests that the Presence is his father and another.

„ This attitude of mind is, however, strictly limited to the Sahib’s compound, or when facing an infuriated “Mem,”who, like another Rachel, weeps for her children’s things, and refuses to be pacified because they are not. At the village wash-ing-tank, when ankle-deep in the thick muddy brown liquid which he miscalls water, and in the inviolable privacy of his confreres’ society, another and a deeper side of the dhobi’s character reveals itself. All unsuspected by the shallow, frivolous foreigner who employs and disdains him,

AN OCCULT PSYCHOLOGICAL MYSTERY OCCURS. An Eastern Jekyll disappears ; an Eastern Hyde takes his place.. The troubled waters in which he stands act as a nonconductor of the effete and complex, civilisation from whose trammels he would escape. Secure in his clement, he exacts a tardy, but terrible vengeance on the dainty nainsook underwear, the frills and the furbelbws, lace-trimmed petticoats, .and the severer masculine garments of those who are at once his tyrants and his victims. Let us take o ne more glance at. this strange phenomenal washerman before leaving him. As the great Hindu Festival of the Dusserah approaches, yet another development in his complex nature can he observed. In a prominent position in the compound, laid out with pitiless accuracy 0 f outline and exposure of detail, are this mistress’s stockings, his masteh’s highest collars, the baby’s most tucked frocks. Occasionally it happens that the garments chosen for this honour are of a more cryptic nature, though a dhobi experienced in the ways • of the white Mem-Sahibs rarely makes this mistake. Also, his irons and ironing-board and other implements of his trade are included. Around them are i WREATHS OF VILE-SMELLING YELLOW MARIGOLDS and sweet-scented, but faded jasmine ; in front a tulsi plant and a.butti —a saucer with a drain of oil and a floating wider Before the group the dhobi solemnly and decorously does pooja. He salaams to it with reverence. These objects of his craft are the only gods—or, perhaps, the only gifts of the gods—he knows of which can, or will, provide him with the slight sustenance he. requires to fill his uncomplaining stomach. Thus, in simple, childlike, gratitude does he thank them once a year, at the same time keeping a sharp look-out as to his, mistress’s whereabouts. For to the mild Hindu the Dusserah Festival is what Boxing Day as to the Briton, or the Jour de I’An to the Gaul-—a season of presents and tips. Perhaps also the ayah may have been squared to draw the lady’s attention to his pious proceedings, so deep, so very deep, ere the ways of the Indian dhobi! • - . And yet what a potential power for good lies in him and his class! More than,a threat of advancing Russian armies, more than a possible invasion of Mongol or Tartar hordes, would his absence or “strike” render the position of Britain in India untenable; for what Englishman could live in that sultry clime without his dhobi? ‘ . THE dhobi’s DONBEY. ’ Inseparably allied to .the dhobi is his donkey. He is the only creature in the vast peninsula that shares his master’s importance and his virtues, though happily not his vices, and, unlike, him, has no periodically recurring alternations in his asinine character, but is good .throughout. A dhobi’s “moke” knows neither bit nor bridle, neither headstall nor pack-saddle, but with invincible patience bears his burdens as Nature has made him. . His poor nostrils are the , only part of his anatomy that have not been left as created. With Oriental callousness to the infliction of pain, they have been cruelly slit up and curved inwards, whether with, the object, of adornment or utility no European can say. A native, if asked, will answer that the elongation of the nostrils improves the donkey’s wind; but as the operation is inflicted on no other animal, and as speed is the last thing ever exacted by a dhobi from his four-footed slave, this explanation will scarcely hold water. Perhaps if, like Balaam’s ass, the long-suffering animal could speak, the secret, together with; others, might cams to light! But that •is as it may be. Meanwhile the deponent is mute, and sayeth not.