After going round the Cape of Good Hope, they reached the Southern tip of Ceylon(Sri Lanka) in late December to approach the home stretch to Madras(Chennai). Ships dared not enter the Bay of Bengal from September to December as the North East monsoons whipped up dangerously huge waves. They reached Chennai by mid January giving time for acclimatization to endure the oppressive heat starting in April. They were housed in barracks in Fort St George where they were shaved and given a haircut. Servants scrubbed and washed them followed by a tailor taking measurements for the uniform. Native servants washed and dried their garments and told that while in India they will never have to wash their clothes by themselves.
A sergeant lectured them on local customs. Women here were not as forward as in England and never dared to make eye contact with men. The Muslim women wore burkhas, which covered them from head to toe, and Hindu women and the few Christian women wore the sari and let it drape over their heads to veil their faces. The women would not tolerate overt friendliness and will shy away and the local men would resent it. Women should be approached very carefully. For those in a hurry, the oldest profession was well organized here and Singaram the duibash (native who knew English and acted as an intermediary) would arrange for girls and make the necessary arrangements. The rigid caste system of the Hindus had four castes, which did not allow for inter caste mobility — it offered opportunities for exploitation by playing one caste against the other. Recruitment to the native army in Madras was from the lowest caste, where as in the Bengal Presidency, men of the higher castes i.e. Kshatriyas and Brahmins were recruited.
The East India Company’s defeat of the Nawab of Bengal in 1757 was easy, where as in the South the enemy was wilier. All was not well in Bengal as a famine was sweeping it with millions dead and news of it has reached Madrasshowing the Company in poor light. The Nizam of Hyderabad was tempted to side with the Company against Hyder Ali, but secretly the Nizam formed an alliance with Hyder Ali. The alliance almost defeated the Company to forge a peace treaty in 1769. In 1772, the Marathas threatened Hyder Ali, and when he claimed assistance from the Company under the treaty of 1769, he was left in the lurch. Hyder Ali recovered and stung by the betrayal, thirsted for revenge. The duibash had to be cultivated to not only advice on the best places for dancing girls but gather intelligence about Hyder Ali’s designs. Hyder Ali had European mercenaries in his army to handle the artillery and it was rumored that he was developing rockets.
The regimental life involved drill, cleaning of canon, ensuring that gunpowder was dry, practice with the musket and taking part in practice maneuvers. The afternoons were reserved for siesta when the sun shone mercilessly. Rum and nautch girls helped in staving of boredom in the evenings.
During one of the maneuvers 30 miles away from Fort St George, a laceration on David’s right thigh turned septic and resulted in high fever. He was rushed back to the Fort where a native woman, Vimala, wearing a white sari and jasmine flowers in her hair attended to him. When she laughed, her gleaming white teeth contrasted beautifully against her rich chocolate complexion. She wore a sari and a tight blouse with the midriff showing and when she parted the sari at times, the navel showed alluringly. Her long legs and round hips were accentuated by her tying the sari low on her hips and tightly around the legs. She fanned him and put a damp cloth on his fore head to bring down the fever. She hummed a tune and comforted him by assuring him that he will get well soon. She could speak English with a heavy Tamil accent and asked him if he had a girl back in England. He said he had one but she left for America and he turned to India.
He asked her if she had a man in her life and she replied that she was a widow. Her husband who worked as a bearer in the officer’s mess died of snakebite when she was nineteen and left her child less. Her father was a duibash in the services of a garrison of the Company at Pallavaram about twelve miles to the South. When he asked why she always wore a white sari, she replied that widows could not wear any color other than white. All widows’ heads were shaven so that men do not lust for them, but she was lucky as an officer forbade her father-in-law from shaving her head. She was lucky to be alive as in Northern India widows sat on the funeral pyre and were cremated live along with their dead husbands. He was moved and wanted to protect her, and tried to put his hand around her to comfort her, when she wrinkled her nose and pulled away.
He realized red faced that he was stinking as he skipped bathing often out of habit. He vowed to bathe everyday, which he did so the same evening as his fever had subsided. The next day he found her not hesitating to come closer as he had bathed and scrubbed and his face shone in expectation. She brought a sweet dish called payasam made of milk, rice, honey and cashew nuts and teasingly fed him. She wiped his mouth when he finished and he caught her shoulders, drew her close and kissed her on her lips.
Vimala asked him if he heard about St Thomas, one of the apostles of Jesus. David said that he vaguely remembers being told about him during his childhood. She explained that St Thomas landed in Kerala before Christianity reached England. He built four churches in Kerala. St Thomas proceeded to Madras where he converted the local king to Christianity. He was murdered on St Thomas Mount, ten miles to the South east of Fort St George.St Thomas was buried at San Thome, five miles to the South of the Fort, where a Church was built over his tomb.
David wanted to visit St Thomas Mount and Vimala agreed to take him there that evening. They set of in the afternoon in a horse drawn carriage, got of at the foot of the hill, and walked up the path. A thick forest covered the hill through which the path wound up to an open space with a church at the center, where David prayed. They went out to sit on a bench to view Madras. They sat till the sun set and proceeded to walk down when he led her off the path into the forest. He kissed her and slipped his hand underneath her sari to unbutton her blouse and she clung to his neck probing his mouth with her tongue. He fondled her breasts and pulled her sari off to reveal a skirt reaching her ankles. He kissed her breast and tugged at the strings holding her skirt, which loosened and fell in a heap. He felt her between her thighs and she sighed and loosened his trouser buttons touching his maleness. He lifted her thin body to slide her onto his erection. “David, ah David, aaah” she cried biting his lip.
They met often at the park when he proposed to her. Marrying a native was encouraged as it saved the company of giving furlough to the men to visit England, and compensation in the form of subsidized quarters was cheap. Vimala agreed and the priest at the Fort’s church insisted that she convert to Christianity first. She resisted, but David convinced her that it was the practical way out for social acceptance and if he converted to Hinduism, he would stick out like sore thumb and might lose his job. His children would be better of as Christians with jobs assured by the East India Company, where as non-Christians would not be trusted. She was any way from the lower caste and converting would elevate her socially.
For the church ceremony, only Vimala’s father and mother were allowed, as the rest of the space was required for his white colleagues and the Platoon commander. For the party afterwards no natives were invited but Vimala did not feel entirely isolated, as there were a few other British soldiers with Indian wives. There were a few born of European fathers and Indian women, who served in the native regiments, police force and postal services. There were no pure white women or pure Indian men in the party. The bachelor Britons flirted with the Eurasian women whose Eurasian husbands looked away for favors to be gained later. David helped Vimala learn the rudiments of dancing and even managed to coax her to take a few sips of rum.
They moved into a tiled roof house provided by the Company in a colony near Vepery, about three miles to the Northwest of the Fort. The colony consisted of only Eurasians, British men and their native wives. Vimala found the practice of wiping and not washing one’s posterior after defecating unclean. She asked David if some grease fell on his face, would he wash it or wipe it, as wiping always left a thin film behind and there is nothing to beat water to wash completely clean. David replied saying that he will try washing and see if he felt clean. He deferred to Vimala’s suggestion and turned to washing and feeling a lot cleaner.
A son was born a year later and christened William Roger. William inherited his father’s hazel eyes and jaws, and his mother’s nose and forehead. He was pale brown with black hair. There was a nanny to tend to William, a cook, a personal attendant to maintain David’s uniform and polish his boots and a servant to help Vimala shopping. She could never have hoped for such a luxurious life had she not married David. Two years later a girl was born and named Gladys. She was fairer than William was but got her mothers black eyes and her father’s aquiline nose. When William was five years old, he started to attend a school solely for Anglo Indians.
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