2-982-453 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Hindoo Fair, 1858. 'Everything is conducted in a quiet, languid kind of way, suited to the heat of the climate and the character of the people...Nautches are being performed in various parts of the fair...The Hindoo is...passionately fond of dancing...and he will sit for hours watching the rather monotonous performance of a group of nautch-girls, giving no other token of his enjoyment than an occasional grunt of "Wah! wah!" which may be interpreted into "Bravo!" [The movements]...are soothing and undulatory. Their art chiefly consists in a graceful arrangement of their flimsy draperies as they pace themselves in a series of voluptuous attitudes. [Also visible are] a group of semi-nude fakeers, who are going through a series of acrobatic exercises for the diversion of a party of native gentlemen on elephants...the solemn Hindoo confectioner, standing at his basketwork table and selling meeties or sweetmeats...In the extreme distance, to the left, we see the temple or shrine at which the pious make their offerings before joining in the amusements of the day. In one respect it contrasts favourably with an English one - the worshippers of Brahma are teetotallers, and their festivities are never debased by drunkenness'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.