CHAPTER XIX
IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE
We have spoken of temples and palaces and the magnificence of Kings and nobles, but now we must turn to the homes of the common people, and see how they live and work. Anyone who adopted the idea that India is a land of general riches and splendour would be making a very great mistake. The vast mass of the people live, not merely in the simplest fashion, but also in the poorest fashion, for the land can scarce produce enough food to satisfy the wants of its teeming millions. If the rains should fail and a crop go wrong, there is famine at once over wide districts, and vast numbers perish.
An Indian village is a collection of small huts, with walls of mud and roof of thatch. At break of day the men, the ryots, go out to labour in the fields which surround the place, putting their bullocks into the light wooden plough, which scarcely does more than scratch the soil. In the shallow furrow thus formed they sow the grain, and then with hoe and mattock they clean the weeds from a crop which is already springing up. These few simple tools serve all the purposes of the husbandman, just as they served his forefathers a thousand years ago.
The women of the village go to the well to draw water, passing on their way the village temple, where they offer fruits and flowers to the stone image of the Hindoo god, in whose honour the temple was built. When they have drawn their water, they return home to cook food and to work in the small compound which surrounds each mud hut. Here they grow trees, which yield the mango, plantain, guava, and other fruits.
As they go back to their homes they cast looks of deep interest at the door of a house where a figure is seated. It is a Brahmin sitting in dharna, for this is an out-of-the-way village where old customs cling fast.
A NATIVE BULLOCK CART. Page 86.
What is dharna? It is really a form of intimidation. Some one has a quarrel with the owner of that house, and he has hired a Brahmin, a member of the priestly caste, to sit on his enemy's doorstep without food or drink, until the latter will do justice. The Brahmin, having undertaken the task, is certain to carry it through. He will starve until the person at whose door he sits has given way. The latter always happens. If the holy man were to starve to death, the sin would lie upon the head of the owner of the house for ever, and his fate in the next world would be dreadful. So, before long, some arrangement is made, and the dispute is settled.
The house before which the Brahmin is performing dharna is that of the money-lender, by far the most powerful man in the village. When a ryot cannot make both ends meet, and he is in trouble either about his rent or his taxes, it is to the money-lender that he flies for assistance. From that powerful personage he borrows a few rupees to tide him over the time of need till his crops shall be ready for sale, and he has to pay a very heavy rate of interest for the loan.