—28—
London
Dear Tanveer,
[In Urdu]: One small beauty is the smell of oil paint on my fingers. The texture is so rich and vibrant! I feel I have discovered an entirely new world.
[In English]: Despite my joy in the paint, I am struggling in some of my classes, and today, I have had the most horrible day.
A few days ago, we turned in our projects, and I felt I had done well—I worked most diligently on a portrait of a vegetable wallah in Nainital, and I was pleased with it, though it could have done with more time.
The green of his tunic, the glare of his eyes, his heavy mustache.
But to my dismay, my professor hated it. Or perhaps didn’t hate, but even worse—he disdained it. He went on at length about my “Orientalist” style, my unsophisticated palette, even my “quaint” subject. It was all I could do not to burst into tears right there.
Of course I did not. We’re learning to be tough, to say thank you for the feedback, even if it’s terrible.
Naturally, Helen, the pet of every single teacher in the place, was praised to the heavens for her portrait of an old man and his pigeons.
Her palette is all soft browns and golds, and I do quite admire it, but it isn’t the only palette to be had.
The world is not only one kind of light.
I am crushed, and I fear that I’m only a dilettante.
This is the second time I’ve been criticized for using an “Orientalist” style.
Honestly, I don’t see my work that way at all.
Orientalism makes a fairy tale of the people and landscapes of India (and other places).
I am painting what I saw, what I knew, the true faces of the chai wallah at the bazaar with his missing front tooth; the girls walking to school with their heads together, the library and the bakery and the tiger.
(Oh, how they hated the tiger series, and I was devastated because I thought I’d done very well. How much did we practice?)
It appears I have overestimated the extent of my talent, and I do not know what my life will be if I am not a painter. Perhaps I am only meant for the vapid life my brother has plotted out for me, a socialite giving teas and balls and vying for the attention of duchesses.
I’m sorry not to add more cheerful notes to this. What am I even doing in this cold, wet, miserable place with all these cold, judgmental people? Am I a fraud, Tanveer? Tell me the truth.
Your friend,
Elsie
January 1914
Talwarpur Palace
Dear Elsie,
[In Urdu]: One small beauty—a boy walking with his tiny sister down the rows of vegetables at the market. He was so gentle with her, laughing when she picked up an aubergine or potato.
[In English]: Of course you are not a fraud, and by now I am sure you have somewhat recovered from the blow of the criticism.
You do not yet know who you are as a painter.
That will take time to develop. Perhaps your taste for painting the images you remember of India will grow, or perhaps over time it will fade, but your worth as a painter does not come from outside validation.
It must come from you. You know this, but you are feeling lost because they are not fawning over you the way everyone always has.
Which sounds unkind, and I do not mean it so. Give it time. Win them over with your great capacity to learn.
I have other news. Gurdaya is to be married next month to a raja of great wealth from near Amritsar.
She is very unhappy that she will have to go so far away, but my father has had enough of her protestations and rejections of suitors, and he has put his foot down.
The marriage will be advantageous for both families.
He is unfortunately a bit older, and a widow twice over, but has not yet produced an heir.
That will be Gurdaya’s task, it appears.
Seeing her unhappiness, I cannot help but think it does no favors to allow girls to be educated when they must marry anyway.
How can she be happy now? Would it not be easier for her to have been left to the ordinary amusements of women, knowing she would have to serve in capacity of wife and mother?
It grieves me on her behalf. I am quite sure she would love a letter from you.
Your friend,
Tanveer
January 1914
London
[In Urdu]
Tanveer, I have sometimes known you to be dense over the rights and wishes of women, but I cannot believe you would actually say Gurdaya would have been better off if she had not been allowed an education.
Do you think her mind would be less, a mind at least as facile and bright as your own, if not more so (and you will argue, but I think you know it’s true)?
It is a tragedy, an actual living tragedy, that she should be squeezed into such a narrow life.
She is meant for bigger things, for the quest to solve a scientific mystery or discover a way to prevent illness.
It is a waste that she cannot explore that part of herself, and it is a loss for the world.
You are a man and cannot help your narrow-mindedness, but I am desperately disappointed in you.
I have cut my hair. Perhaps at least partly because I am angry with you.
Elsie
January 30, 1914
London
Dear Gudiya,
A drawing I have done for you, to always remember how mighty you are. You are mighty, my friend, and wise. Continue with your studies as you are able, and remember, I am always here, your friend forever. I am here, in England, and I would so love to have you visit one day.
Your friend,
Elsie
[Enclosed drawing of Gurdaya on top of a hill]
February 1914
Talwarpur Palace
[In Urdu]
Dear Elsie,
Cut your hair! I do not even know how to address this calamity. I cannot imagine you without your yards and yards of night-dark hair. Why would you do such a thing?
Gurdaya is now married. She wept the entire night before we traveled to her husband’s palace.
I took your words to heart, for you are right.
She should have had more autonomy in determining her life, but while the rights and freedoms of women are emerging in Europe and America, here it is still a distant dream.
I do not know how to address it myself—these structures of what men and women can do are deeply rooted and how can they be changed?
The Guru said we are all equal, men and women, king and untouchable, but that is hard to follow in the actual living world.
My sister’s unhappiness reminds me to consider this in the light of other independence.
If we struggle to free India, and yet women are not given the same rights to order their lives that men are, then are we truly free?
I shall think on this more.
Rather than being angry with me and taking me to task, you might remember that I, too, am a part of my society, and I have been trained to think and believe certain things about our roles.
Your fierce ideas and my sister’s beautiful mind and her great despair are excellent teachers, but I am still a man of my world. I am still learning.
Perhaps in a way this is much like your inability to see where your work might give tribute to colonial ideals, and where it is authentic. No matter how you wish it not to be true, you are a member of the colonial class. You are as tainted by that as I am by my world of men.
Perhaps in this, as in so many ways, we teach each other.
My father has suggested he might bring me with him when he next visits London.
If you were not there, I would have no interest, but he insists I must know what the mind of the Englishman holds if we are to navigate the coming decades.
In private, he fiercely supports independence, but in public, he flatters and cajoles and makes bargains.
I thought once that he was disingenuous, but I have begun to admire his tactics, at least in this mode.
He tells me I am too earnest, that too much shows in my expression, and while I know this must be true, I do not know exactly how to hide those things.
My brother is far better at these games, though I must say he has not my father’s character.
He likes a fast life, with too many women and too much drink.
Just now, he’s touring Belgium while his young wife languishes here in the palace, lonely and far from home.
Let us make peace, my friend. To that end, here is my small beauty:
We have acquired two more tigers as company for Chhoti Billi.
Both cubs, again orphaned, these too young to be left on their own.
I have been bottle feeding them for several weeks, and truly, that is a joyful thing, to hold a cub and give it the meal it needs, knowing it is alive because we have chosen to give ourselves to its nurturance.
I think of you that first day with Chhoti Billi, holding her in your lap and weeping with happiness.
Which makes me wonder if you have acquired a cat of your own yet. Or perhaps not, living in a dormitory as you do.
Sending branches of peace, my friend.
Tanveer
[Enclosed sketch of a pair of tiger cubs]
From Gurdaya
February 27, 1914
[In Urdu]
Dear Elsie,
Thank you for your letter. At first I did not think I would answer, because I am so angry, and that made me angry with you.
You say that so easily—just continue with your studies!
As if I would be granted all the books and materials I should wish.
That will not be my life, chiriya. It makes me furious that you are free, going to art school while I am married to a man so old his balls swing like an old woman’s earrings.
He smells of camphor, and I feel I shall scream every time he mounts me.
How is this the life I am meant to live?
Why wasn’t I born a man? Or a woman in a place where she is free?
It is not fair. Which is a child’s cry, and yet it is mine nonetheless.
There are free women here. Only look at Mrs. Ganguly, but it seems a woman must be a widow to gain power, and for all that he’s ancient, I do not see my husband expiring in any near future. By that time, I shall be old as dirt and unable to do any of the things I so dreamed of.
I am so angry!
And I am sorrowful, too, the weight of a river of tears running through my blood, making me plod along like an ancient elephant.
This is not what you want to hear. I do not know what else to say. It is terrible, and I am grieving, and I do not know how to move forward.
Thank you. I miss you. Be well. Be free. Dance for both of us.
Gurdaya
March 17, 1914
London
[In Urdu]
Dear Gurdaya,
You are a poet and a writer and a scholar. Surely there is a corner where you might place a table, an inkpot and paper to write, a shelf for books to read and study. I am sending you a collection of essays I believe you shall enjoy. I would love to read anything you write.
Tanveer and I are studying books together so I do not lose my (thin) facility with Urdu. Perhaps you and I could practice this, as well?
Be well, Pyari Sahelī.
Elsie
[Enclosed Essays and Leaves from a Notebook, George Eliot]
March 20, 1914
London
[In Urdu]
Dear Tanveer,
I cannot ever be angry with you for long. Your heart is truly one of the kindest I’ve ever known, and whatever flawed thinking you exhibit over the lives of women, I do know you have been taught this way and can be untaught.
And I must admit I was chagrined to have you turn the tables with my paintings. Could they be tainted by my own colonialism?
Am I so blind? I feel I have painted out of deepest love, for the landscape I grew up in, for the things that fueled my artist’s soul, for the faces and people who inspire me. Is that colonial? Or is it love? I don’t know how to tell the difference!
It is very complicated and makes me feel weepy and foolish. I do not know how to see what I cannot see. In this way, perhaps it was wrong of me to expect you to see things in light of women’s desires.
I do wish we could thrash these ideas out together in person.
You must come with your father to England!
It would be so wonderful to see your earnest, honest face again.
The vision of you giving baby tigers a bottle gave me such joy, and made me miss you all the more.
Because I do miss you, still, all the time.
I have yet to meet anyone in my world who supplies what you give—your good nature and your good mind, but also the ease I feel in your company, the acceptance (and challenge!) you offer me, and that I hope you feel in return.
My heart is suddenly seized with a fear that our connection will be faded in person, that we shall be so changed by time that we barely recognize each other. What if we have nothing to say?
No, I cannot imagine that. Oh, do please come, Tanveer!
As to my hair—I cut it for purely practical reasons.
It is very heavy and thick and takes a long time to dry and care for.
Many of the women students at Slade have adopted a shorter cut, and it’s liberating.
A few have also adopted a costume of trousers, and I’ve followed suit while in the studio, where they give greater freedom of movement, though it is also true that I am awfully fond of my frocks, and do not miss a single chance to wear them.
I considered your gentle prod about whether India will fade for me over time.
Perhaps it will, and I do find now that I love portraits of all manner of people, so I can focus on who is around me, though I suspect the faces I find fascinating are still not the illuminated beauties my professors seem to want.
Ever I am drawn to people who are not like myself, not only the Indian world of my memory, but the fishwives hawking their wares with their missing teeth, and the African girl in service at Nina’s townhome, in the ancient drunks begging near the docks, and in the fine Muslim shopkeeper with his sharply pressed kurta.
Painting is sometimes an exploration, a way to really look at anything, and when I look at each of those beings, I see another petal of the flower of humanity.
I have made portraits of my fellows, and more than once one of these bohemian artists have offered up their own bodies for us all to draw. Rocky has modeled for the ladies’ life drawing, safely draped. I have not yet got my nerve up to model for others, but I have modeled often enough for myself.
And perhaps I am being indiscreet, so I will halt now. Be well, my dearest Tanveer. I miss you more than I could possibly say.
Please come to London.
Elsie
PS: I do not have a cat in the dorms. Mother has adopted a slew of kittens for mousing in the house at Herewich, and I enjoy them when I visit.
She, too, will want to see you. My father has been poorly the past few months.
Oddly, he seems to have adapted far less well to returning to his home country than my mother, who never lived here at all.