A Little Known Anglo-Indian Writer

DR. (Mrs.) ILA RAO
Reader in English, Andhra University, Waltair

It is interesting to observe how in the early twentieth century many English novelists and writers considered India as a good theme for their works. Not all, however, were inspired by the same motives; there were some authors like Kipling and Flora Annie Steele who drew on their own experiences of the country and wrote novels which were thorough and meticulous studies of the country, but were at the same time coloured with their own personal views. In spite of their efforts one is aware all the time of their superior attitude. Both these writers are extremely sympathetic and understanding towards the Indian temperament and they try to fuse their own views with that of the subject, and yet the Imperialistic views creep in. The novels of both Kipling and Flora Annie Steele are based only upon their limited experiences of the country in a special type of society. Their attitude is again different from that of L. H. Myers who also wrote and published novels with India as the subject. It is amazing how he could build up a vision of the country, not from his personal experiences as he had never been to India but on his vast reading and scholarship. E. M. Forster and J. R. Ackerley have on the other hand a first-hand experience of India. Though A Passage to India is a very subtle and clever study of Anglo-Indian relations, Forster makes it very clear that “India is a spirit and all those who want to understand her must regard her spiritually.”

All the writers who have been mentioned are well known authors, but very few would have heard of Philip Steegman’s book Indian Ink. Nothing is known of this author’s life beyond the fact that he was born in the year 1903, and that he is an English portrait painter. This book seems to be his first attempt at writing; and since its publication in 1939 he has not written any other book. He cannot be considered as an outstanding author, but the work is interesting as it deals with India and presents a very sensitive and picturesque view of the country. Many writers have been interested in India, not necessarily because of what it can offer with its variety, depth of knowledge and natural beauty, but for the mere sake of curiosity in a life that is so different from their own. Philip Steegman is least concerned with any imperialistic and political view of the country. His view is the painter’s view, the sensitive and artistic attitude that can discover beauty in every nook and corner of life.

This book can be considered as a travelogue or a journal of his experiences in Nepal and India. His description of the country is interesting enough, but what is more unique is his point of view and his attitude which is so different from other English authors who have written on the same theme. In his foreword to the book, Hugh Walpole is very appreciative of this artistic attitude and he explains it as an attempt on the part of the author to show that “there is life behind the life, a world within a world.”¹

No writer can help noticing the dirt, the disease, the ignorance and the squalor of India, but behind all this is the essential beauty of the Indian spirit, and Philip Steegman understands this quality and he tries to bring it out in his book. The sense of disillusion that had come over him in the highly artificial social life of the West gives place to a sense of beauty and peace after his experiences in India.

The narrative starts with the author going to India in search of patrons for his art. So far as his knowledge of the country was concerned, he knew nothing beyond the fact that ‘it was a pleasant country for administrators, missionaries, soldiers, sportsmen and businessmen. That it was V-shaped coloured pink in the map and therefore belonged to us.” ² As he is going with a very open mind, the moment he reaches Bombay his whole attitude towards the country starts changing. He meets various types of people in Bombay and he takes as instinctive dislike to the Europeans who look down upon the Indians. He is fascinated with the Indians on the other hand, because they may not know much about every day affairs, but they knew far more about those things of which we, in all the arrogance of our blind faith in our own age, have lost the meaning.” ³ Bombay and its artificial club life does not produce a very favourable impression on him, and though his European friends label him as an eccentric and queer, he feels much more at home with the Indians than with the snobbish Europeans.

From Bombay he goes to Delhi and he is absolutely charmed by this city and its sharp contrasts. He comes to consider Delhi as an embodiment of the beauty and the meaning of the East. “The romance of the East does not have to be courted. It comes easily and unexpectedly to the passive traveller, for violent contrasts are always at hand. Even the seven-mile drive from my hotel in old Delhi to the new Imperial city was a perpetual thrill of contrasts.” ⁴ Even in Delhi he is constantly ridiculed and criticized by his English friends, because he is mostly found in the company of Indians and acquires ‘disgusting native habits like chewing pan’. The teeming humanity of Delhi provides him with ample subjects for his canvas, and the lives of Indians appear more interesting and appealing than those of Europeans in India who only know how to cling to false values and prestiges. The painter is apparent in every line that he writes; the sensitiveness of the artist is unmistakable in lines like these.

“Sheer beauty is so simple and shy that few people bother to look for it. It is more often such things as the poignant deliberate swing in the bare legs of a burdened cooly, or the strange haphazard pattern in the sad stains of pan spit on a wall, or the lonely face in a crowd when eyes meet and linger for a second, which invoke free play upon canvas.” ⁵

The most memorable event in his stay at Delhi was his encounter with a Sadhu. He realizes that there is an unknown quality in life which science and reason cannot explain; he also understands that it is much better to accept than to argue. He had made plans with one of his English friends to visit the Taj Mahal by car, and he meets a Sadhu who is held in great esteem by one of his Indian friends. The Sadhu warns him not to go that night as it would be fatal to him. His Indian friends counsel him not to argue but to obey the Sadhu as he is gifted with what they called “inner-vision.” The Sadhu’s physical presence is revolting to him as his whole body is affected with leprosy, but reluctantly he agrees not to go on the journey. His English friend, however, goes ahead alone to Agra and on his way is involved in a car accident and is killed. His other English friends consider this accident as a mere coincidence, but for the author this is a revelation that there might be forces behind life of which we are not aware. On the last occasion of their meeting, the Sadhu had Said they will meet again after eight months, three weeks and two days, but the author does not attach any importance to this prediction but forgets all about it in the excitement of his journey from Delhi to Calcutta and subsequently to many native States where he painted many portraits.

He had always been attracted to Nepal, its history and natural beauty. After an extensive tour of South India he finally manages to go to Nepal. The description he gives of Khatmandu is one of the most gorgeous spectacles. For him the sheer beauty of this scene with the Himalayas in the ground appears like a mystic vision. He says “High up above the opposite slopes and moving to the right and left as far as I could see, a huge gleaming, white mass of snow and ice surged up and hovered in the air like a crescent of ghostly square-rigged ships hiding the sky with their white sails filled with the breath of the gods and their decks awash with the spray of all my hopes. No face, no figure that I have ever seen, no moment of passion and no echo of a dream I have ever known could dim the faultless lustre of that vision and when all is done with me, when life has nothing more to give me nor I to give to life, a few specks of spray perhaps, will prink my eyes before they shut and I shall know for certain that I have lived.” ⁶ The author makes it very clear that it is beauty alone that matters in life and that it is a manifestation of the divine, the unknown and the mysterious. It is the impact of beauty on the senses of an individual that awakens him to the sense of life. This feeling had always been with him but had grown stronger during his stay in India. One incident, however, makes him believe fully in the unknown and mysterious quality behind life. On his way to the temple of Shambhunath, he meets a Sadhu who is absolutely emaciated and unrecognizable and it is only from the bright look in his eyes that he suddenly recognizes him as the same Sadhu he had met in his friend’s house at Delhi; a rapid calculation of the dates shows it is exactly eight months, three weeks and two days since he had last seen him. His mind is full of doubts and questions, but the words of his Indian friend came to his mind and he thinks it best not to question but to accept the fact that “Strange men and minds meet in the Himalayas.” He understands that explanations and clarifications are unnecessary and futile. Many things have to be understood through the feelings and responses and it is that things had increased the intensity of the individual character. He tries to convey to us the meaning behind beauty in nature and the mystery behind existence, and he says, “And there, high up in the sky, just where the mauve and yellow glow of the reflected sunset merged into the clear blue unanswerable statement of space, I saw that long line of glittering white peaks, and I held my breath to fix the meaning of that immortal vision in my mind.” ⁷

This vision is there in his mind only for a moment and he comes to the material world with the realization that one cannot always live in the spiritual world, but must also learn to live a full material life. If only the West can learn to approach the East with the eyes of an artist, materially dispassionate, but hungry for spiritual knowledge, there will be a great bond of amity and friendship. The author shows in this book how he was spiritually richer after his experience in India.

Philip Steegman is not a popular writer. Evidently he was not a best seller. He can be interesting to only those readers who are well acquainted and familiar with the scenes he describes. Besides, he makes very little use of the devices generally used by writers about India–snakes, rope-trick and dancing girls; the elephant, the Rajahs and Sadhus are there, but these are inevitable as they form an essential part of his experiences in the country. To the reader who is not familiar with India, his descriptions will appear to be lengthy and exaggerated. There was a favourable review of this book in The Fortnightly Review of June 1939, but even there his experiences are referred to as “amusing if slightly superficial, a series of filmy, shadowy and flitting impressions.” For an Indian, however, they are the familiar scenes, presented in the vivid language of an artist who deals with real colours in life. He is very honest about his views and there is no trace at all in his language of any pomposity cliches and superfluous words.

The book is mainly the account of a personal experience, not only of travel in India, but a pilgrimage of the soul; how from a mood of disillusion he attained an attitude of peace and serenity by the effect of beauty on his life. Though the author refers to many characters not one is given any importance or a prominent place; even the Sadhu who plays such an important part in the author’s spiritual development, is not elaborately described; we are aware only of one character, the author, through whose vision we see the other characters. There seems to be a deep underlying meaning in the book, it seems as if the only solution for frustration and defeat in life is a belief in the spiritual values and a response to beauty in nature.

The style of Philip Steegman is interesting; he has the characteristic qualities of a painter; he has an acute sense of observation, a faithfulness to details, an eye for colour and an uncanny sense for the unusual. In many respects his style can be compared with that of Virginia Woolf. We are aware of the author’s acute poetic and realistic sensibility in many of the descriptions. Very often we are aware of the eye of the painter behind the writer. He has also a wonderful sense of humour and a lively wit which keeps the interest alive throughout the book. Speaking about an Indian politician he says, “He viciously shook the ash from his cigar as if it were the dust from his feet.” He compares one of his Indian friends who asks him whether he has seen the Taj Mahal to an English dowagel and the very humour lies in the comparison and the similarity he draws.

The book can be compared with similar recent books on India, like Naipaul’s Area of Darkness and Ved Mehta’s Walking the Indian streets. It is interesting to see howthree different authors deal sodifferently with the same subject. Of course, it should be remembered that the India of the thirties, but there is the essential difference in attitude. Naipaul and Ved Mehta are mostly critical of what they see in India; it is the very system in India of which they are critical. For Naipaul the experience in India was the shattering of an illusion and hence the bitterness in his attitude. Ved Mehta has spent most of his life in the United States, and he views the customs and manners of India with distaste and ridicule. For Steegman India was a rewarding experience. It is not as if he closes hiseyes to the defects and ugliness. However filthy and dirty the Ganges might be, there is that indescribable quality in her which makes her holy to the Indians. Instead of sneering at the beliefs and the traditions of the Hindus, he perceives an inner meaning behind them. Thus he says:

“Ganges is the main drain of India; silt, filth, dead bodies and living matter, more loathsome than corruption, are carried endlessly along in its placid water, but at any point along the thousand miles of its course the water is perfectly pure and can be drunk by anyone with impunity. In vain scientists have searched its secret with test tubes and with baffled looks have probed its slimy mud, but scientists arc unimaginative people who can only feel with facts.” ⁸

There are many inexplicable things in life and probably life is all the more meaningful and livable because of these elements. If everything could be understood by the yard-stick of reason and science, then the mere beauty and charm of existence would be lost. He has the open mind of an artist willing to perceive beauty wherever it can be found. It is in this sense that though the author is obscure his work is unique and worth studying. It is the sensibility of the artist that makes the book different from other books on the same subject. Hugh Walpole in his foreword to the book has pointed out this quality and the artistic of the writer. He says:

“The India that Mr. Stefgman found, with its leperous fakirs, its bejewelled princes, its dust and English snobbery, its patience and its sinister undertone, this India is alive and exotically flaming with colour brilliance seen through dust.” ⁹

¹ Philip Steegman, Indian Ink p. VIII.
² Philip Steegman, Indian Ink, p. I
³ Ibid p. 30
⁴ Philip Steegman, Indian Ink p. 30
⁵ Philip Steegman, Indian Ink p. 33
⁶ Philip Steegman, Indian Ink p. 224
⁷ Philip Steegman, Indian Ink p. 246
⁸ Philip Steegman, Indian Ink p. 119
⁹ Philip Steegman, Indian Ink Foreword -p. VIII