“Tom has got two months’ leave, and Charlie is coming up from Madras; we are going away on a trip into the real jungle.”
“For what?” she asked tartly.
“Well, to see something different from the routine of cantonment life, something different from the band-stand and D.W.P. pattern church—to see real India.”
“What folly! Real India, indeed!” she snorted; “as if you would ever see it! It makes me wild to hear of people talking, and worse still, writing about India, as if one person could grasp even a small corner of it. Here am I, twenty-five years in the country, speaking the language fluently, and what do I know?” she paused dramatically. “The bazaar prices, the names of the local trees and flowers, the rents of the principal houses up at Simla.” (I have reason to believe that my aunt did herself gross injustice; she knew the private affairs of half the civilians in the provinces, and was on intimate terms with their “family skeletons.”) “As to the character of the people! I cannot even fathom my own ayah, and she is with me eleven years.”
“I believe some people know a great deal about India,” I ventured to protest.
“Stuff!” she interrupted. “One person may know a little of one part of the continent, but there are twenty Indias!—all different, with different climates, customs, and people. What resemblance is there between a Moplah on the west coast and a Leucha from Darjeeling, a little stunted Andamanese and a Sikh; a Gond from the C.P. and a Pathan from the frontier; a Bengali Baboo and a bold Rohilla?” (Aunt Jane was now mounted on her hobby, and I had nothing to do but to look and listen.) “Every one thinks his own little corner is India. You, as an officer’s wife—the wife of a subaltern in a marching regiment”—(she always insisted on the prefix “marching”)—“have better chances than a civilian, for they live in one groove; you are shot about from Colombo to Peshawar. However, much good it will do you, for you are naturally dull, and have no talent for observation.”
“No, not like you, Aunt Jane,” I ventured with mild sarcasm: was she not going home?
“And where are you bound for?” she pursued.
“About a hundred miles out, due north.”
“That is the Merween district, I know it well. We were in that division years ago. Had you consulted me, before making your plans, your uncle might have arranged about elephants for you. It’s too late now,” with a somewhat triumphant air.