. Indian life in town and country . vercrowding transcends the Jews quarters inWhitechapel. Under such conditions, caste, andeven custom, have to give way to convenience, or,at least, what is practicable, and domestic privacyin its rural state becomes impossible except for thewealthy. For rents have to be paid, and that isa very disagreeable form of expenditure in a landwhere, although the population is as poor as theproverbial church mouse, yet it is a fact that morethan four fifths of the people pay no rent, but livein their own houses! To summarise the Indian home, you may saythat it afford
. Indian life in town and country . vercrowding transcends the Jews quarters inWhitechapel. Under such conditions, caste, andeven custom, have to give way to convenience, or,at least, what is practicable, and domestic privacyin its rural state becomes impossible except for thewealthy. For rents have to be paid, and that isa very disagreeable form of expenditure in a landwhere, although the population is as poor as theproverbial church mouse, yet it is a fact that morethan four fifths of the people pay no rent, but livein their own houses! To summarise the Indian home, you may saythat it affords shelter from the sun and rain, andsupplies that amount of privacy which walls canafford. But when you seek for comfort, taste, 140 Indian Life and decoration, you seek in vain. In its socialaspect, it is entirely wanting in that spirit whichlends enchantment to our own idea of home life,and leaves us little cause to regret that in his self-ishness and suspicion the native of India is prac-tically always ** not at home to CHAPTER XIN THK sunshine; ARK you happy ?*I am happy. That is one of the commonest forms of saluta-tion in the Bast, corresponding to our * How dyou do?—* Quite well, thank you. But theconventional inquiry and stereotyped reply meanlittle. ** I am happy, a man answered me once,with a very lugubrious face, who, I learned onfurther questioning, had lost nine of his nearestand dearest relations from cholera during thethree preceding days. I am conscious that so far in this attempt to de-pict daily life in India the colours used have beensombre. It has been unavoidable, for India is aland of penury and privation, struggle and star-vation, woe and want, for the vast is not * merrie when times are hard;in India, the times are always more or less popular handbook tells us that the Indian peas-ant is at the best of times not far from the verge ofstarvation, and the statement is not 142 Indian Life I harp on the peas
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