Unfortunately the fakir did not improve the longer he stayed with us. The Mission children were at first inclined to make game of him. Their attitude to the religions to which some of them once belonged is generally one of intense contempt, and they do not always exercise discretion in their way of expressing their feelings. The so-called "ascetics" are feared in India, but not respected, and our children, no longer fearing them, are apt to show their scorn. The fakir did not accept with humility the disrespect of the children, and I first became aware that they had been calling after him rudely, when he turned and faced them with fierce rebukes.
But they were not the only people with whom he quarrelled. Both on the road, and at his station by the tomb, I often heard him pouring out torrents of angry eloquence, sometimes to the rather numerous women who visited him, bringing him offerings of food. I was not near enough to understand whether he was wroth because the offerings were not to his taste. Also, little luxuries began to gather round him. With the arrival of the rains came an umbrella. A smart new lamp to mark out his encampment at night took the place of the shabby old one. He usually returned from his frequent visits to the Mohammedan egg-merchant enjoying one of the cheap smokes which Indians love, and he began to put up the framework of a shanty as a shelter over himself and the tomb. The materials for the shanty came in but slowly, so that it was some time before the fakir could be said to have a roof over his head. Perhaps the faithful did not altogether approve of the diminishing austerity in the ascetic life.
His shed was completed at last, and he could no longer be said to be quite homeless. But though his new house could not be called luxurious, his life had lost the edifying element of the complete poverty of his shelterless sojourn by the side of the tomb. Nor, when his time was up, did he show any inclination to resume his wanderings, and it seems not unlikely that he will remain in his quarters at the tomb till his turn comes to die, and then the kindly egg-merchant will erect a whitewashed sepulchre over his remains, and he will be reckoned among the saints.
Members of a large and peculiar religious community of Hindus are often to be met with in the Bombay Presidency. Their habit resembles the ordinary dress worn by Hindus, but a good deal amplified, and dyed a slate colour. It is a rather successful adaptation of everyday dress to religious purposes. They travel generally in large companies and stay a long time in one spot, where, as a rule, they form a camp of temporary huts. But sometimes they take a house for a while. Small detachments from the main body wander round the villages, lodging in an empty house, or taking possession of the village rest-house. They remain till the charity of the village is exhausted, and then they move on.
They beg on a large scale. The "one pice," or farthing, which the ordinary beggar asks for, does not at all represent their idea of charity. They expect any fairly well-to-do person, such as a shopkeeper, to give sufficient food for the whole community for one day, and they sit in his house till they get it. They do not stand at the door and salaam and cringe, like the ordinary mendicant. They boldly enter in uninvited and demand alms. They are much disliked on account of the largeness of their wants. But they are also feared on account of the terrible nature of their denunciations if they do not get what they ask for. They profess to be celibates, but a peculiarity of their constitution is that the community consists of both males and females, and they camp close to each other. The small detachments who travel round the villages are also mixed companies. There are a large number of children attached to the community, who are brought up to follow the same life and wear the same slate-coloured habit. So also do the women, who receive an education, contrary to the custom so prevalent in India, and are said to spend a good deal of their time teaching the children. Their explanation of the presence of children in their midst is that they are orphans, or that they have been given to them by parents in fulfilment of a vow.
One of the small sub-sections of the community took up their quarters in the verandah of a shut-up house in Yerandawana. Passing through the village one evening, I came upon them just as they were about to sit down to their evening meal. I asked a rather pleasant-looking, middle-aged woman whether the several children that I saw playing about went to school. She replied, "No. I teach them." A tall, not very attractive-looking old man came out of the verandah, and asked who I was. When I gave him my name, he said that his name was "Krishna Padre"—the latter being the popular title given in India to a clergyman. He was the Guru, or religious teacher, to the community.
I said that I was the Christian Guru of the place. He asked me the usual questions as to what pay I got, and who gave me my food and clothing, and the meaning of the knots in my girdle. Then he asked me if I ate meat, and when I said that I did, he took a large pinch of snuff, saying that I was not a true Guru, because a true Guru never eats meat. Someone then called him away to supper. I invited him to come and see the church next day, but the following morning they all moved on to the next village. The Yerandawana people were thankful to be rid of them, and assured me that the Guru's assertion that he never took meat was not true; as also another of his assertions, that they never worshipped idols, because they carried one about with them and the old Guru worshipped it daily.