She of Rajputana although giving royally, demands something, and gets it: she of Bengal demands nothing, she is here to give, not to get; and if by chance she is thrown a crumb, she is grateful to pathos.
The one type, if I may so put it, is masculine, the other the quintessence of femininity ... and it is a difference easily explained. It is the outcome of the history of the two peoples. The Fighter demands that his womenkind should be of the stature of the Mothers of Fighters. So to the beauty of subjection, she adds the beauty of self-respect. In the other, self is so submerged that there is no room even for respect of self. And, the sainthood of the women apart, one questions the wisdom of the second type, for the man.
The Khettrya Rajputni of to-day though very strictly Purdahnashin is still an individual: still does she claim and keep the spirit which is hers by inheritance. The festival and practice of the Bracelet has its place in her life even now, though the fighting days are over ... still is hers the reverence of the Flower Festival. But the custom of the Mahommedan has affected her also: she lives much in the Zenana, attending to her gods, her house, and children.
The Shudra, who has no purdah, and the Veishya, whose purdah means two veils and a number of women attendants, may be seen in the street: and, as we look at her in her pretty red draperies, carrying so gracefully her pyramid of water-pots, or trudging sturdily through the burning dust to the shrine beside the Lake—we see in level brow, in frank open countenance and carriage, the spirit of the free—and we say to ourselves, “No! the personality of the Rajputni is not dead, it is only domesticated.”
But we carry our questionings no further: “By God, I am a Rajput and a King. I do not talk of the life behind the curtain!”
X
THE QUEEN WHO STOOD ERECT
It was a spacious roof-terrace—large even for the house of a King: for an earthquake had destroyed almost an entire story, and no one had troubled to do more through the years that followed than move away the débris.
So the Zenana had a whole wing of open spaces at the top of the landing, and here it was that we sat, under a sky that was like a pink opal, while the swallows and the yellow-beaked mainas, and crows, flew overhead to roost. Bats there were too—“devil’s mice”—flapping the sleep out of their wings: and now, a red-brown throated, red-brown coated brahmini-kite, to whom the women made prayerful salutation. A kingfisher had just flashed past, bright as the sea at noonday, bright even in that darkening light, and knowing the reverence of the Rajputni for the kingfisher, I thought the gentle courtesy his.
It was Nanni-Ma, Baby’s Grandmother, she who had the face of victory over death, who explained. “Kali Ma chose once to take that form,” she said, inclining her head towards the red-brown one. A sudden swoop brought him almost within reach of the baby plaything and those lonely widow-women, and with terror in loving eyes the child was clasped close. Who shall tell what mixture of dread was in their hearts? dread of the big bird’s talons and dread of Kali the Destroyer, to whom if she wanted a life, that one life which was theirs, it must be yielded, cost what it might.... But the love which was the parent and the offspring of that terror was spilling out of their eyes as they handed the child each to each—first Mother clasping him, and then Big-Mother, while the white-sheeted waiting-women huddled on their haunches, cloth drawn beseemingly over mouth, gurgled “Hi! hi!” wagging their heads, and swaying with sympathy. It is unique, the attitude of a Hindu widow to her baby, unique in its beauty even among baby lovers. For the child represents more to these lonely ones than just a soft lovesome bit of flesh and laughter, of pretty pursed lips and rounded limbs, and great mop of soft black hair; more too than the gift of him they love. It is now in itself their passport to heaven, their token of the visit of God to the world: it is to be, presently, the saviour of those who have been closest to them in life—husband, father....
“One small flicker in the lantern of the body—should any put out this light, who will relight it? For us, not even the Creator himself, in this life, not even the Creator....”