How hopeless it would be to attempt to decide which is the national dress out of any of those now worn in India, might be realised even in England by a visit to a museum, such as the Indian Institute in Oxford. There is there a most interesting collection of clay figures, admirably modelled, and coloured and draped. They represent many of the various types and dresses to be found in the country. These figures are made in Poona City, and are absolutely correct. They do not by any means include all the varieties of costume to be seen in India. Nevertheless, if you were to mix them all up together, the result would very fairly represent the motley throng which you might see in the more crowded parts of Bombay City, to which place, as a great sea-port, people come from all parts of India. If you were to select a person out of the throng as wearing a dress suitable for Christians to adopt, you would be told that that particular costume denoted either the man's religion or his occupation, or both, and for anyone else to wear it, except those of the same class as himself, would create a false impression as to the wearer's identity. If you were to suggest that the costume selected might be adopted as the national dress for India, you would be assured that no one would consent to wear it except the little group of people whose distinctive garb it is.
How much dress has to do with the appearance of an Indian was brought home to me one day, when a magnificent-looking policeman entered the carriage in which I was sitting, at a station near Bombay. He had on a tall blue turban, dark blue tunic with leathern belt, loose knickerbockers, and putties. His clothes were put on with extreme neatness; they were as spotless as those of a London policeman, and the brass numbers and letters polished to the highest degree. I was astonished to see this magnificent fellow rapidly divest himself of all his clothing—turban, tunic, knickerbockers, putties—there would have been nothing left, except that a Hindu wears beneath his uniform the meagre garments which suffice for everyday life, so that when he had got rid of everything which appertained to him as a policeman he was still fit to go into Indian society. The ordinary garments of an Indian are scanty, but the double set of clothing might be thought rather oppressive in the tropics. But the Indian likes to be warmly clad at any time of the year. Boys of the Mission will wear comforters and warm coats well into the hot season if allowed to do so.
The effect of the removal of the policeman's uniform was startling. He was evidently going off duty, because he handed all his discarded belongings to a friend on the platform, and he was only using my carriage as a dressing-room. The whole process of transformation only took about two minutes, and he then walked off in the opposite direction. But no one could have supposed that there was any identity between the shabby Hindu, with shaved head and little pigtail and fluttering dhota, and that fine-looking fellow who first entered the carriage.
CHAPTER VII
INDIAN UNPUNCTUALITY
On the railway. The unpunctual neighbour. Indians' opinions concerning punctuality. Christianity only a partial cure. Servants and punctuality. Indians' unpunctuality at meals. Parable of the Marriage Feast. Patient waiting.
The inveterate unpunctuality of almost all Indians is a serious obstacle to the progress of the country. Hours and days are wasted through their failure to keep appointments, or to do work at the proper time. The Indian takes long to understand, and never appreciates, the Englishman's craze for punctuality. Because the Englishman grumbles when the Indian is two hours late in keeping his appointment, the latter thinks that it is only part of the former's natural unreasonableness.