DINNER ON THE FLOOR

Waikato Independent, Volume XXX, Issue 2433, 6 January 1931, Page 5

DINNER ON THE FLOOR

QUAINT MEAL IN INDIA. GUESTS IN NATIVE COSTUME.

Custom forbids the Viceroy's wife to dine out, but it had been long agreed between Lady Lansdowne and . the Maharanee of Cooch Behar, that should she ever return to India as a private person she should come to a dinner served native fashion, "on the floor." My sister having returned to Calcutta for her son's marriage in 1909, the Maharanee reminded her of this promise writes Lord Frederic Hamilton in "Here, There and Everywhere." Upon arriving at the house Lady Lansdowne 'and two other European ladies were conducted upstairs to be arrayed in native garb, whilst the Maharajah's sons with great glee took charge of myself, of yet another nephew of mine, and of the Viceroy's head aide-de-camp. Although it can hardly be taken as a compliment, truth compels me to confess that the young Cooch Bchars considered my figure reminisment of that of a Bengalee gentleman. With some slight shock to my modesty, I was persuaded to discard my trousers, being draped in their place with over thirty yards of white muslin, wound round and round, and in and out of my lower limbs. A dark blue silk tunic, and a flat turban completed my transformation into a Bengalee country squire, or his equivalent. My nephew, being very slight and tall, was at once turned into a sikh, with skin-tight trousers, a very high turban, and the tightest of cloth-of-gold tunics, whilst the other young man, a good-looking dark young fellow, became a Rajput prince, and shimmered with silver brocades. I must own that European ladies do not show up to advantage in the native sarc. Their colouring looks all wrong, and they have not the knack of balancing their unaccustomed draperies. . . As it had been agreed that strict native fashion was to be observed, we were all shoeless. The Maharanee, laughing like a child, sprinkled us with rose-water, and threw garlands of flowers and wreaths of tinsel round our necks. I felt like a walking Christmas tree as we Avcnt down to dinner.

Round a largo, empty, marble-paved room, twelve little red-silk beds were disposed, one for each guest. In front of each bed stood an assemblage of some thirty silver bowls, big and little, all grouped round a large silver platter, piled a foot high with a pyramid of rice. This-was the entire dinner, and there were, of course, neither knives nor forks. No one who has not tried it can have any idea of the difficulty of plunging the right hand into a pile of rice, of attempting to form, a ball of it, and then dipping it at haphazard into one of the silver bowls of mysterious preparation. Very little of my rice ever reached my mouth, for it insisted on spreading itself greasily over the marble floor, and I was gratified at noting that the European ladies managed no better than I did. . . Some native dishes are excellent; others must certainly be acquired tastesV For instance, after a long course of apprenticeship one might be in a position to appreciate snipe stewed in rose-water, and I am convinced that asafoetida as a dressing to chicken must be delicious to those trained to it from their infancy. A quaint sweet, compounded of cocoanut cream and rose-water, and gilded all over with gold-leaf, lingers in my memory. As hands naturally get greasy, eating in this novel fashion, two servants were constantly ready with a silver basin and a long-necked silver ewer, with which to pour water over soiled hands. This basin and ewer delighted me, for in shape they were exactly like the ones that "the little captive maid" was offering to Naaman's wife in a picture which hung in my nursery as a child. 1 liked watching the graceful play of the wrists and arms of the Maharanee and her djughters as they conveyed food to their mouths; it was a contrast to the clumsy, ineffectual efforts of the Europeans.