Women of the Raj by Margaret Macmillan

Author:Margaret Macmillan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
Published: 2018-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

9

HOUSEKEEPING

‘An Indian household can no more be governed peacefully, without dignity and prestige, than an Indian Empire’, wrote Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner. The management of her house was one of the greatest tests faced by the memsahib. ‘The end and object is not merely personal comfort but the formation of a home – that unit of civilization where father and children, master and servant, employer and employed, can learn their several duties. When all is said and done also herein lies the natural outlet for most of the talent peculiar to women.’ And, in her miniature empire, the woman of the Raj had many of the same problems as the men on their larger stage. How was she to rule her subjects? How was she to keep India under control? Success was measured by the way in which she dealt with her domain. ‘Chota Mem’ (‘Junior Memsahib’), author of the guide The English Bride, published in 1908, declared, ‘In calling on a new acquaintance, I have invariably been able to judge a woman’s character by her drawing-room and servant.’

Women new to the country had to cope with their strange houses and alien servants. Even those who had grown up in India had sometimes picked up little from their mothers. New brides had to muddle through, learning the unfamiliar procedures, finding out what sort of supplies they needed to keep on hand, working out, often through painful trial and error, how much money they could spend. (Rosamund Lawrence remembered of those first days that she was near to tears in her ignorance and perplexity.)

There were dreadful meals, sometimes cooked by the inexperienced memsahib herself, sometimes produced by the cook she did not know how to talk to. Enormous bills for supplies appeared, run up by servants who assured her that all was in order. Awkward scenes took place when she ordered a servant to perform a task which he could not possibly do because of his caste. Minnie Blane complained uncomprehendingly to her mother: ‘Actually the other day I desired my table servant to bring me the drawing-room lamp to clean, as I take charge of them. He refused, saying that he would lose caste to touch it. Fool! I got so angry, and after a hard battle got my way, but really they are enough to drive one mad!’ And some mistakes were simply embarrassing. There was the lady in Assam who ordered a servant to bring her an umbrella (chatta in the local dialect); unfortunately she used the word chatti, which means breast. Monica Campbell-Martin, in her first months in India, reduced a servant to helpless giggles when she asked him about his cold. She pronounced the word incorrectly so that it appeared as though she were asking him if he were married. When the servant answered yes, she went into considerable detail about a cure for his condition, from purgatives to a good rest in bed.

Slowly they learnt. They picked up enough vernacular to issue simple orders.

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