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The Dalhousie Club.
The club was a peculiarly 'Anglo-Indian' institution. "In any town in India the European Club is the spiritual citadel, the real seat of the British power, the Nirvana for which native officials and millionaires pine in vain." George Orwell, Burmese Days, 1935. "Any member shooting a pig be expelled the Club". Rule Eleven, Nuggur and Deccan Tent Club. Dalhousie has a distinctly English feel; leafy green lanes and old colonial architecture left behind by the 'Britishers' - with a little imaginatiion it's easy to see what life must have once have been like in the old hill station.
The Club was the heart of any British station so I headed to the Dalhousie Club, established in 1895 and still occupying it's place at the center of the bazaar. I expected it to be shuttered and boarded. The curator at the library could tell me nothing about it, and had never been there himself. The Club provided all civil servants with a place to get together for games and exercise. At the Club people danced or talked, or played cards or looked at the papers. To my surprise the door was wide open and a man sat in the cavernous space doing just that. With a
Interior.
The club the 'hub of local society'. broad smile, he nodded when I asked if I might look around, and continued perusing his paper. The Club was a delight -fully renovated by the Indian military, not so different as it might have appeared under the Britishers. Some of the chairs were a little modern, and the disco ball was a later addition, but there were still a few antlers mounted on wooden plaques, old paintings and military insignia littering the walls.
The Club generated a lot of snobbery. Women were admitted, but had no official standing and their names never appeared on the membership lists. If you didn't belong to the Club you were a social outcast. Reginald Savoury recalls: "Either you were a rebel, and a rather courageous rebel ... or else you were a social outcast who wanted to belong.. but couldn't get in". (1) Looking at the visitors book it seemed something of this attitude still lingered - a brigadier or general had noted - "civilian visitors should be better attended".
Luckily we were allowed to roam. Footsteps echoing on the polished wooden floorboards, we nosed in the bridge room, the library, and the reading room. The bar was was intact -
The bar.
Scotch was the drink. The 'chotapeg' being two fingers of whiskey and the 'burrapeg' three. all red brocade, mirrors and high swivel stools. A few bottles of whiskey seemed to constitute the entire bar stock. Perhaps a throw-back to the old days? - Although whiskey cost less than Rs. 3 per bottle, the Club was not the place for hard drinking. Appearances had to be maintained and anyone who was inclined to over-indulge did so in the privacy of his own home. Naturally, during the Raj, I would never have been allowed in the bar. Women had a special area reserved for them - the
'moorghi-khana' - which translates literally as 'hen-house'.
We walked around the large covered verandah - imaginging the sahibs and their spouses sitting in whicker chairs, and almost hearing the continuous cries of 'koi-Hai' - the call for the servants to come and attend. For the rest conversation was trivial in the extreme - these people saw each other every day and had little to talk about except 'shop' and in the case of the women, family or domestic matters. The club get together usually ended at 8 or 9 in the evening when everyone went home for dinner.
After half an hour of living the life of the Raj, we went off in pursuit of tea - another great English institution - at the Hotel Mount View.
(1) All of the information in this blog about the Raj comes from "Plain Tales From the Raj" by Charles Allen. See chapter entitled "The Club". p116-128.
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