Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1919 — BAZAARS of INDIA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BAZAARS of INDIA

THE day of the bazaar In India has long passed without hope for any return of its glory. Yet the visitor, in search of novelty, may still be fairly well satisfied with the results of the effort he must make to see what remains of the curious life in those places which are different from everything in this land; their nearest parallel being the French market in New Orleans, or a county fair, says the Christian Science Monitor. The stranger to India should take the precaution to secure the services as a guide and physical protector of a thoroughly competent interpreter, one who is conversant with at least half a dozen of the numerous dialects spoken in India’s commercial circles, and who—when it comes to buying or rejecting—knows at a glance “a hawk from aherneshaw” because, as a decidedly cynical Engglishman said, “Nine-tenths of the stuff displayed in those Indian bazaars are spurious, and the remainder utterly worthless rubbish.” An exaggeration, of course, yet it is a hard matter to find the few gems that may be there; and, at any rate, if the purchasable Inanimate is lacking, the almost endless variety of the recumbent or animate human denizens is a rich reward for the fatiguing hours in a bazaar. In Search of the Picturesque. It is a great pity that civilization is so very inconsiderate toward the picturesque, the stranger, and the racially attractive (in spite of its dirt) which are so different from the life and the people we know and are so tired of, their inartistic dirt especially, that we often rush off to the antipodes to find something artistic and interesting. When we fail in our search, we are apt to abuse the writers who tell us —not what they really did see, but what they had predetermined they were to see. It is not many years since that the bazaar at Delhi, to take at random one of the many, was truly a wonderful place. It occupied a large extent of ground, covered with all manner of ramshackle buildings, the ground floors of which were open stalls somewhat like those seen in the illustration accompanying this article. There were a few fairly broad thoroughfares which traversed the section from side to side in a serpentine course, but the really interesting and attractive shops were reached by many narrow, winding lanes, forming a veritable labyrinth, into which the unwary stranger who ventured alone was quickly lost; and when he betrayed his misfortune by act or word, was sure to be pounced upon by a flock of human vultures bent upon getting his last rupee in exchange for their wares, and heartless as to whether or not he got back to the meager civilization of Delhi’s then wretched hotel. In the main avenues there were—shall we say canals, or streams, or ditches? Well, there was something in whichever we call them that possessed the motion of liquid, and there was one, or perhaps two, rows of dis-couraged-looking trees. But in the narrow alleys there was no disguising the fact that those ditches were simply open drains, usually so torpid in their flow that the stench was almost overpowering, and the visitor from abroad wondered how any human being could breathe the fetid air all day and all night as complacently as did the bazaar denizens. Occasional Bargains Found. . Nevertheless, those were the days when it was quite possible to pick up really rare and precious bargains for a song, plaques hammered out from brass or fllher metals, true gems of many kinds, jade ornaments deftly carved from jade In minute patterns, making them almost literally “worth their weight In gold,” and many other treasures such* as nowadays never reach a bazaar stall, for they are snapped up by professional dealers the moment they leave the hands of their Original owner, whom want compels

to sacrifice, and the dealer knows exactly where lives the rich Indian who pays, without much haggling, tie topmost price. The glory of the bazaar, like that of practically all that was picturesque, had given way to the vitally needed sanitary measures. But the bazaar still exists, although rather in what we would call open or general markets. Undoubtedly they continue to offer many temptations spread before the covetous eyes of the foreign visitor in such alluring ways that the end of purchasing is not reached even when the bottom of the purse is, because the dealers are only too glad to send their wares to the hotel to be paid for at master’s or madam’s convenience, and lots of other “rare bargains which cannot be duplicated.” Most Fascinating of Streets. Mr. Curtis’ “Modero India” says of Delhi’s Chandni Chauk, “Silver Street,” that it is fairly called “the most picturesque and fascinating street in the world.” Between the two rows of trees that grow along the center of its width of 75 feet there was formerly an aqueduct of clear, running water, that is now filled, and its banks are the great promenade for the city’s gentry, both foreign residents and natives. But the street is marvelous for ths adeptness of the shopkeepers in “spotting” the stranger. Let a visitor from abroad appear, no matter how perfectly (he, at least, thinks) he has disguised himself in proper Indian garb, he is pounced upon by a swarm of shopkeepers, and besought to avail himself of the bargains that were never before offered, and never will again fall to his good fortune, until he either yields and secures, sometlmea a true bargain, but often a lot of rubbish, or calls to his relief a friendly policeman, usually a swarthy Sikh. Sometimes it is most amusing when rival merchants grapple each other in their frantic efforts to secure the monopoly of a seemingly profitable customer, and the policeman’s services are required to separate the belligerents.

The Bazaar of Lucknow.