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The Yerandawana people were thankful to be rid of them, and assured me that the Guru's assertion that he never took meat was not true; as also another of his assertions, that they never worshipped idols, because they carried one about with them and the old Guru worshipped it daily. Exaggerated statements about widows. Easterns naturally demonstrative in their grief. The conservative widow.
On inquiry, it transpired that this woman refused to avail herself of her freedom, and that she preferred to bear the outward marks of widowhood out of respect to the memory of her husband. One of the most influential of the residents in Yerandawana village is a widow, and she is much looked up to.
He also has some privileges connected with the river which flows past Yerandawana; as, for instance, gravel cannot be taken from it without paying him a royalty. He also has certain rights over the stone quarries and the pasturage on some of the hills. Pan supari is the betel nut wrapped up in a leaf, which is distributed to guests on festal occasions, and chewed by those who like it.
At the present day, in the immediate neighbourhood of Yerandawana the only wild creatures left are the fox and the jackal, with an occasional hyena. Jackals visit the outskirts of the village at night to see if there is anything eatable to be picked up, and they sometimes race across the Mission compound in the early morning on their way home.
The Indian equivalent of the English parish clerk at the village church at Yerandawana was about to be married in Bombay, where his bride resided, 120 miles away. His mother was a curious, cross-grained old woman, not yet a Christian.
As telegrams have to be transmitted in English, I am familiar with the nature of those sent to rustic Indians, because those that come to Yerandawana always find their way to the Mission bungalow to be interpreted. Amongst the more well-to-do Indians a death is now almost always announced by telegraph.
Like the lady visitors from the Hindu college, they showed some diversity of taste and opinion in their dress and ornaments and arrangement of hair. When plague was bad in Poona City many of the well-to-do people left their homes and camped round about Yerandawana.
One such fresco, on the wall of the house of the headman of Yerandawana village, is a most comical reproduction of the garden front of Windsor Castle, taken from an Illustrated London News, but embellished with many Indian characteristics.
I was quickly taken to the Hindu police inspector of the district in which Yerandawana is situated. In him I found a courteous, English-speaking Brahmin, who promised to come himself and look into the matter. He did so, examined Bhau, asked various questions, and promised that the conduct of the police should be investigated.
He knew nothing about the particular fakir whose tomb he was honouring, but it was sufficient that he had been a mendicant like himself. An egg-merchant is the only Mohammedan living in Yerandawana, and I fancy that the fakir was rather a tax on him, although a few Hindus gave him small contributions.
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