The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600-1947 by Denis Judd

Author:Denis Judd [Judd, Denis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Asia, General, Europe, Great Britain, World, Modern, History, India & South Asia
ISBN: 9780192805799
Google: hlf9u1asHTAC
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2005-03-23T23:00:00+00:00

The summer heat that has so badly affected ‘Pagett M.P.’ proved equally troublesome to those who upheld the Raj. ‘Prickly heat’, for instance, was described as ‘a sort of rash which breaks out on you, and, as its name infers, is prickly in its nature. I can only compare it to lying in a state of nudity on a horse hair sofa, rather worn, and with the prickles of the horse hair very much exposed, and with other horse hair sofas above you, and all around, tucking you in. Sitting on thorns would be agreeable by comparison, the infliction in that case being local.’96

Despite Noel Coward’s later lampoon of ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’, it was in practice best for Europeans to shelter from the sun between midday and two o’clock in the afternoon: ‘The white sunlight lies upon the roads in so palpable a heat that it might be peeled off: the bare blinding walls, surcharged with heat, refuse to soak in any more. . . . In the dusty hollows of the roadside the pariah dogs lie sweltering in dry heat. Beneath the trees sit the crows, their beaks agape. The buffaloes are wallowing in the shrunken mud-holes, but not a human being is abroad of his own will.’97

When the weather became cooler, or in the evenings, it was possible to enjoy a promenade in a respectable part of town, to listen to the military music being played in the bandstand, to admire the red poinsettias (a tropical flower): ‘One could go to friends for dinner, or perhaps to an official reception. When the rains came, the garden would sprout overnight, the roof might leak . . . and cockroaches and snakes invade the verandah.’

Despite the drenching monsoon rains, it was the Indian heat that was generally considered worse and more dangerous. In the hot season, those families who could afford it went to the hill stations, many of which became similar to holiday resorts. Here the air was crisp and cool, and diseases like cholera were kept at bay. The most famous hill station was Simla, where the Viceroy and his retinue came to escape from Calcutta’s feverish heat. Simla, and other hill stations, soon acquired the reputation for a vigorous social life, romance, and adulterous liaisons.

Before all this could be experienced, however, the women and children had to travel from the plains to the hills. This is how it was proposed to transport a typical family consisting of a mother, three or four children, and a nurse or ayah:

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