There were sword-swallowers and sword-dancers beguiling the shuffling throngs for tossed money. Snake charmers tootling on flutes as they swayed in unison with deadly cobras. There were jugglers and acrobats, magicians and dancers, some young boys as beautiful as virgin brides who pirouetted to the enthusiastic clapping and cheers of a circle of onlookers, ankle bangles and bells jingling, with their eyes outlined lasciviously with kohl. There were girls in tight bodices and loose, gauzy skirts with their midriffs bare, the skirts and the gauze head-dresses flying out behind them as they danced, showing more to the amazed and love-starved eyes of him and his companions than most husbands would ever get to see of their wives back home in England!
There were puppet shows, the rajah and ranee version of Punch and Judy. There were groups of singers, street-theatre troupes up on flimsy stages ranting some historical or religious dramas. Or they might have been comedies-Alan couldn't tell.
And India wasn't all of a piece, either. Calcutta was a rich trading town. So down from the mountains inland, there were Afridis and Pathans, Nepalis and ancient Aryans, Persian-looking Moghuls, all with their pyjammy trousers stuffed into ornamented boots with love locks dangling from beneath their puggarees. They bore curved swords and knives with little bells jingling from their hilts. Poor zamindars in town to sell their produce, rich landowners shopping for bargains among the imported European items. Hindoos and Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Parsees and the rare Buddhist. In time, Alan might learn to tell the difference between them, as well as the difference between the Bengali majority and the visiting Dravidians, Mahrattas, Dogras, the people from Assam and Nagaland to the east, the Tamils of the southeast and the harsher people who hailed from the Oudh north of the Vindhaya Hills, the great dividing line between permanently conquered India, and semi-autonomous India that the Aryans and the Moghuls had never been able to rule for long.
"Worth the voyage, I swear," Alan exclaimed as they sat in the shade of a tree, munching on dates, sugared almonds and pistachios.
"Aye, 'tis a rare land, I'll grant," McTaggart agreed as he essayed his first banana, after watching the natives to see if one took the bright yellow husk off first, or ate it entire. Colin was Calvinist-Presbyterian dour most of the time, over-educated like most Scots compared to their English counterparts who thought that too much intelligence was a dangerous thing, but could be nudged to enthusiasm now and again, enough to prove that he was human. "But with food sae cheap, how do ye explain sae many mendicants?"
Besides the exotic pleasures of the bazaar, there was the irritation of seeing so many poor, so many beggars minus a limb, an eye, covered with running ulcers. So many people barely clad in a ragged, filthy dhotee and puggaree who couldn't even afford the cheap but well-made sandals the mochees nimbly cut from their sheets of leather.
"Speaking of mendicants," Alan said, sighing, as a pair of beggars appeared near them, one limping grandly on a crutch, one leg gone, and the other sightless-one eye rolling madly and the other flat gone, with the empty socket exposed.
"Naheen, yer buggers!" Cony snapped, feeling protective of his people. "Juldi jao!" And the beggars sheered off. Under the amputee's robes, Alan could almost spot a leg and a foot, bound to the man's backsides. "Fakin' h'it. Mister Lewrie. Fakin… 'r maimed o'purpose."
"God's teeth, Cony, where'd you pick up such mastery of the language!" Alan marveled.
"Been talkin' t' that servant, Ajit Roy, sir," Cony replied, flushing. "Y'pick up a word'r two 'ere an' there, ya do, sir. An' Ajit done warned me h'about some o' the shams they kin get up to, sir. Lame their own kiddies t' make 'em look pitiable, worse'n Midland gypsies."
"But what did ye say ta them?" McTaggart inquired.
"Naheen, that's 'no,' plain as day, sir. Juldi jao is kinda like 'bugger off,' sir," Cony replied, getting sheepish.
"Ye'r a man o' many parts, Cony," McTaggart said, praising with an appreciative chuckle. "Lucky our Lewrie is, ta hae yer services."
Long as I don't have to pay him more than I do already, Alan thought, chiming in with verbal appreciation as well.
Cony's paltry vocabulary came in handy once more on their way back to Fort William 's wide maidan, the drill ground, and the quieter regions of the European quarter. Frankly, after wandering about the bazaar and its many twists and turns, they were lost.
They could see one of the fort's ramparts down the length of a narrow, meandering lane of small two-story mud houses, and decided to take a shortcut. Music was more prominent in this quarter. Sitars and flutes, palms beating alien rhythms on madals that Alan couldn't quite get the gist of no matter how hard he tried. The music was mildly irritating to a European ear, but oddly pleasing after a little while. One more wonder to be savored of this grand experience paid for with so much labor, terror, drudgery and misery at sea-savored for its difference even if it had been noxious.
Several girls leaned out of doorways along the narrow street and came out to greet them, making the two-handed gesture of greeting and bowing gracefully to them.
"Namaste, burra-sahibs. Namaste!"
"Namaste," Alan replied, feeling foolish giving them the two hands at brow level just to be polite, encumbered as he was with his little basket of nuts and fruits.
"Hamare ghalee ana, achcha, din, "* one lovely maiden intoned, giving him an appraising grin. Milk-coffee brown, not a minute above eighteen or so, bounteous breasts bound in by a snug sateen minijacket, bangles on her wrists and ankles, midriff tapering to tininess above taut but womanly hips contained in a sash and series of gauzy skirts. Her hair was long, loose and fly-away-curly under a gauze chudder head-cloth that hung to her hips, weighted down with little gold coins. "Mere sath chalenghe, burra-sahib?"** she cooed.
"Good God, Lewrie, ye dinna think…" McTaggart almost strangled in shocked prudery as the girl and her equally lovely compatriots wriggled their hips slow and sultry, comfirming their suspicions.
"Whores, aye they are, Colin. Bit broad in the stern-quarters for my liking," Alan replied, appraising them coolly. "And damn near strangle a man with those stout little legs of theirs. Suppose it's the fashion in the East. Still…"
"Man, ye canna be considerin'…" McTaggart gargled, turning red as a throttled turnip.
"Saat rupee, burra-sahib," the girl whispered invitingly.
'"A's seven o' them Hindoo shillin's, sir," Cony supplied in an even voice, feeling in his cummerbund for loose change between the folds. That little maid back in London had had a powerful effect on him. "Might be a bit steep, sir."
"And peppered wi' the pox ta her very brows!" McTaggart gasped. "Ye may count on it. Tell her 'No thank ye'!"
"Ham bahut kaam hai, girl," Cony told her. "We're busy, don't ya know? But…"
*"Good day, come into our street." Traditional whores' greeting.
**"Will you come with me, great lord?"
"Not to my taste, Cony. However, she might be to yours," Alan allowed. "We could meet you at the darzee's."