My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyMadras—who combined in a degree exceptional for those climes, the capacity forthought and action. This circle at least gave me a certain insight into Hindu thinkingand character. Unfortunately most English people in touch with Indian life belongedto freak cults of this kind. The rest seemed to be entirely cut off, although officials atthe highest level were making painstaking efforts to understand. The mass ofofficialdom appeared to live entirely apart, particularly the women. They seemedconscious of little or nothing except the heat, which of course always affectsEuropeans more after a long sojourn than it does during the casual visit. Theirmanners to Indians for the most part left much to be desired. I remember commentingafterwards that India would be lost by bad manners. Some distinguishedEnglishmen—Lord Willingdon, for example—were loved, simply because they hadthe good manners which Indians appreciate. It was embarrassing a little later to sitnext at dinner in Paris to one of the most beautiful and distinguished of the Indianprincesses who had been educated in that city, and to have my enquiry why she nevercame to London met with the reply—'because in Paris I am treated like a lady'.Indians were then very sensitive, but they had cause to be.It required, therefore, a certain degree of intelligence and sensitivity to get on withIndians at that time. They were full of complexes, well described in E. M. Forster's APassage to India. This attitude contained both a sense of inferiority and superiority.We were staying with the Viceroy, Lord Reading—Rufus Isaacs of Mr. Asquith'sCabinet, a man of considerable capacity and of appropriately distinguishedappearance—when the foremost orator among Indian statesmen came to dinner. 'Tellme, Mr. Sastri,' said, the Viceroy, 'how did you acquire such a perfect command ofthe English language?' 'Your Excellency, I had the inestimable advantage of fouryears at Oxford University.' 'But many of our young men have had the same chance,without becoming orators like you.' 'Your Excellency, I had one very slight additionaladvantage, four thousand years of culture behind me.' My mind went back to the storyof Disraeli's retort to the suggestion of Lord Malmesbury that he was an upstart. 'Myancestors were princes in the Temple of Solomon, while yours were running throughyour wet English woods with their backsides painted blue.'Yet this arrogance could blend with the opposite complex. I had been up in the Rajputcountry staying in the magnificent dwellings of the Rajahs, and on returning observedto one of my best and most intelligent Indian friends that I had not seen a singlepainting by any of the European masters among all their wealth of possessions. Atonce came the shadow, and I knew he was thinking: the European feels that we areincapable of appreciating his art. It took me three days hard work to restore the oldgood relations; it was so absurd, because I should not have expected to find exquisitePersian miniatures in the country houses of England, and would not have beenoffended if an Indian had suggested that some should be acquired. I did not feelblameworthy for that, but a gaffe in the Rajput country made me feel guilty. It was inUdaipur, the lovely Venice of India, a city built on water. The Maharajah invited us tostay and arranged an elaborately organised tiger-shoot. We were placed in a hightower well out of harm's way while about a thousand retainers drove through thejungle; they were dressed in bright gold—as sunbeams—to emphasise the historic factthat the Maharajah was descended from the sun. The sunbeams converged on us fromall sides, but no tiger; he had escaped. A small porcupine ran out, and I shot him;meaning to show that we were in no way put out by the failure of the tiger-shoot andthat we still regarded it all as a jolly occasion. But my festive gesture was taken sadly104 of 424