Among The Brahmins and Pariahs

Ever since the advent of British rule in India the inquisitive Europeans have been busy making deep study of the life of Indian people-their ancient past and also their present. Since India is as large as Europe minus Russia, they found it a land of endless variety of geography, climate, culture, religions, sprawling plains, arid deserts, dense forests, great rivers, lofty mountain ranges and above all a society boasting of the highest to the lowest stages of culture and which was at once the most affluent and at the same time swallowing in most abject poverty. Some belonged to the fairest of the human race and some dark no less than the Negroes of Africa. The present volume gives one of the most intere4sting and at the same time most realistic description of the Indian society as it existed in the opening decades of the twentieth century. The author, a German traveler, stayed in India for fifteen years in the course of which he traveled from the ‘Malabar coast to the fields of the Himalayas’ and saw every part of the country, watching from close quarters the social life as led by the natives of India as well as by the white men, who ruled over them. As soon as the book appeared in German, it became most popular among European readers and was soon translated in several other European languages including its present translation in English. During his sojourn, the author observed the antiquity of Hinduism and its timeless existence. In his own words”.. nations have come and gone, the sacrifices and the hymns to the Devas (gods) are eventoday offered up and sung as in the days of the great Gautama. In vain did the Muslim Moghuls with despotic cruelty strivek to enslave the soul of Hinduism to their Crescent. Inspite of all, Brahminism has remained erect, unchanging through the changing ages, like aroc admist foaming breakets.” And then follow most charming accountsk such as of the 14 years old ravishing beauty Malka of the China town’s redlight area of Calcutta where he was taken by the Police Inspector Macnaughten and to the under world of opium dens of Chinese quarters. This is followed by the heart-rending life story of Brahmin ascetic Sita Bai whom he found singing on her instrument. She became a widow at the age of 12, an orphan at the age of 17 when she lost herk entire family in a devastating famine. The most delectable account in the book is that in which he describes his memories of malabar, the Pearl of India, ‘nestling in its marvelous garland of palam trees, the wild and rugged Ghats climbing steeply to the table land of India and the life story of the Brahman boy Kumaran who became a Christian Convert and lived to serve the lepers in whose colony he made his permanent home against the stiff opposition of his parents and where he ultimately got infected by the fatal disease and died a noble death in the service of the lepers.