[105]. Brandy is a large price.
This last statement is to the effect that curry does not want breakfast, wants tiffin, but the heathen mind never translates the memsahib literally. It picks the words it knows out of her discourse and links them together upon a system of probabilities which long application and severe experiences have made remarkably correct. Then it salaams and acts. The usually admirable result is misleading to the memsahib, who naturally ascribes it to the grace and force and clearness of her directions. Whereas it is really the discernment of Kali Bagh that is to be commended.
Considering the existence of the Higher and Lower Standard there is less difference between the Hindustani of Anglo-Indian ladies and Anglo-Indian gentlemen than one would expect. The sahib has several choice epithets that do not attach themselves to the vocabulary of the memsahib, who seldom allows her wrath to run to anything more abusive than “Son-of-an-Owl,” or “Poor-kind-of-man,” and the voice of the sahib is in itself a terrible thing so that all his commands are more emphatic, more quickly to be obeyed. But he is pleased to use much the same forms of speech as are common to the memsahib, and if he isn’t understood he will know the reason why. The same delicate autocracy pervades the sahib’s Hindustani as characterises most of his relations with his Indian fellow-subjects. He has subdued their language, as it were, to such uses as he thinks fit to put it, and if they do not choose to acquire it in this form, so much the more inconvenient for them. He can always get another kitmutgar. The slight incongruities of his system do not present themselves to the sahib. He has a vague theory that one ought not to say tum[[106]] to a Rajah, but he doesn’t want to talk to Rajahs—he didn’t come out for that. So that my accuracy need not be doubted I will quote the case of Mr. Perth Macintyre, and I am quite sure that if Mr. Perth Macintyre were to be presented to the Nizam of Hyderabad to-morrow—an honour he would not at all covet—he would find nothing better to say to him in Hindustani than “Atcha hai?”[[107]]—the formula he would use to a favourite syce.
[106]. You (familiar).
[107]. Are you well? (familiar).
Mrs. Browne had a great aptitude for languages. She had brought her German prizes with her, and used to look at them with much satisfaction when the problem of conquering Hindustani was new to her, and she thought it would be a matter of some difficulty. She had ambitious ideas at first, connected with a grammar and a dictionary, and one January afternoon she learned a whole page of rules for the termination of the feminine. Mrs. Macdonald found her at it, and assured her earnestly that she was “going the wrong way about it.” “With all you have to do,” declared Mrs. Macdonald, “you’ll never get to the end of that book, and when you do you’ll have forgotten the beginning. Whatever is the difference to you whether ghoree is the feminine for horse, or what the plural is! They’re all gorahs! Now I picked up Hindustani in the ordinary way. I listened, and whenever I didn’t know a thing I asked my ayah what its name was—and in two months I spoke the language fluently. So will you, but never with a grammar; a grammar won’t help you to order dinner. Neither will a dictionary—you won’t find ‘hoss-nallis’ in a dictionary. That’s Hindustani for ‘horse-radish.’ It’s awfully funny, how like English the language is in some words?”
“Is it?” said Helen, “I hadn’t noticed that. It must be quite easy to learn, then.”
“Oh, quite! For instance, where we say ‘stable,’ and ‘coat,’ and ‘beer,’ they say ‘ishtable,’ and ‘coatee,’ and ‘beer-shrab.’ And the Hindustani for ‘kettle’ is ‘kettley,’ and for ‘bottle,’ ‘botle.’ Oh, it’s not a difficult language!”
One does not cling to a manual of Hindustani in the face of the protestations of one’s friends, and Mrs. Browne found herself induced to abandon hers before the terminations for the feminine were quite fixed in her mind. One might just as well acquire the language in a less laborious way. So she paid diligent attention, for one thing, to ordinary Anglo-Indian conversation, which is in itself a very fair manual of Hindustani. There is hardly any slang in Anglo-India, the tongue of the gentle Hindu supplies a substitute for that picturesque form of expression. It permeates all classes of society, that is, both Covenanted and Uncovenanted classes; and there are none so dignified in speech as to eschew it. Mrs. Wodenhamer uses it, and the missionaries’ wives. It is ever on the tongue of Kitty Toote; I have no doubt it creeps into the parlance of Her Excellency. Therefore it cannot be vulgar. Only this morning, Mrs. Jack Lovitt in the course of ten minutes’ conversation in my drawing-room simply scintillated with it. She wanted to know if it was pucca that we were going home for good next hot weather, and remarked that it was a pity we had the house on a long bundabust,[[108]] it was always such a dick and worry to get rid of a lease. One of her kitmutgars had been giving her trouble—she was afraid he was a bad jat of man—he was turning out a regular budmash.[[109]] He attended to his hookums[[110]] very well, but he was always getting into golmals[[111]] with the other servants. Had I heard the gup about Walter Toote’s being in trouble with his Department? Awful row on, Mrs. Lovitt believed. And had I been at Government House the night before? It was getting altogether too gurrum[[112]] for nautches now. As for her, she had been up every blessed night for a week with Mrs. Gammidge’s butcha[[113]]—awfully bad with dysentery, poor little wretch—and was too done to go. It was quite time the season was over, and yet they had three burra-khanas[[114]] on for next week.
[108]. Agreement.