(Continued )
Indian fauna such as spiders, scorpions, cobras, elephants, tigers, cheetahs and lions regale the reader across many of Plum’s narratives. Princes and maharajas of yore also find a mention occasionally.
- Take the example of Summer Moonshine’s Colonel Tanner, who, during his tenure in India under the English raj, had learnt to be comfortable with the presence of Afridis, snakes, scorpions and even tigers in his sleeping quarters. Members of these species would ‘saunter into his abode as if it were a country club to which they had paid the entrance fee’.
- In Thank You, Jeeves, Chuffy introduces Bertie to Sergeant Voules, who claims to have tackled as many as ninety-six big spiders while in India. Bertie’s protests that he is unable to sleep in his own bedroom because there is a big pink spider lurking around there (indirectly referring to Pauline Stoker, Chuffy’s fiancée, in his heliotrope pajamas!) get ignored. He gets hauled back to his bed. Luckily for all concerned, Pauline has already done the vanishing trick by then.
- In Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, Orlo Porter runs into Bertie Wooster and is as startled as an Indian native who sees a scorpion in his path. He goes on to ejaculate: ‘Wooster, you blasted slimy creeping crawling serpent, I might have expected this!’
- What does an Indian native do when bitten by a scorpion? In Uneasy Money, Plum tells us that ‘He does not stop to lament, nor does he hang about analysing his emotions. He keeps running until he has worked the poison out of his system. Not until then does he attempt introspection.’ The amiable Lord Dawlish, after a rather unpleasant meeting with Lady Wetherby, follows a similar policy. After leaving her house, he does not run. Instead, he takes a very long and rapid walk. He has an acute sense of being poisoned and wishes to work the poison out of his system. He has nothing on his mind other than walking faster and faster.
- In Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Ma Trotter, upon going through a morning journal, discovers that the powers that be have gone ahead and knighted Robert Blenkinsop instead of her illustrious husband. ‘She stares at The Times much like an Indian resident would eye a cobra, had he found it nestling in his bath tub’.
- On his part, the husband, L. G. Trotter, is a man who suffers from dyspepsia and is already out of harmony with his wife. The latter screaming her head off in the middle of the breakfast startles him, making him give her ‘the sort of look the cobra might have given the resident of India who had barged in on its morning bath.’
- In Bachelors Anonymous, we run into Mr. Ivor Llewellyn, head of the Superba-Llewellyn studio of Hollywood. Having suffered through as many as five divorces, he wishes to remain a bachelor. However, upon Joseph “Joe” Pickering’s insistence that he visit a hospital, Cupid strikes yet again. He ends up proposing to Amelia Bingham, a nurse he comes in touch with at the hospital. He squarely blames Joe for having got him entangled into yet another prospect of marriage. Upon return, he looks at Joe with an open dislike, much like a resident of India registers ‘when he comes to have his morning bath and finds a cobra nestling in the bath tub.’
- In Galahad at Blandings, as also in Pigs Have Wings, Plum says that Beach never buzzes off, ‘his customary mode of progression being modelled on that of an elephant sauntering through an Indian jungle.’
- As per Meet Mr. Mulliner, as well asthe story ‘Gala Night’ in Mulliner Nights, when royalty goes a-hunting, it expects to be supported by elephants which display an easy nonchalance when their masters spot a tiger in an Indian jungle. But there are times when such hunting expeditions get spoiled by ‘the failure of the elephant to see eye to eye with its owner in the matter of what constitutes sport.’ How does one avoid the prospect of an elephant turning and galloping home? How does one ensure that a timid elephant would instead trumpet loudly and charge the fiercest tiger without any hesitation, ‘facing the tiger of the jungle with a jaunty sang-froid?’
- Wilfred Mulliner has a solution in the form of a tonic known as Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo. Were a teaspoonful of it be mixed with the morning bran-mash, better results ensue.
- Sunset at Blandings tells us how one feels when one is likely to face the prospect of facing a formidable person like Dame Daphne Winkworth? If Gally is to be believed, one would find oneself in the position of a native of India who knows that a tigress is lurking in the undergrowth near at hand and wonders how soon she will be among those present.
- In Big Money, when Berry acts like a buoyant and aspiring sportsman in the jungles of India who has caught a tiger by its tail, he realizes that even though all has been well so far, his next move would need careful consideration.
- Uncle Dynamite records the reaction of Sir Aylmer when being told by Lord Ickenham that he would go hundred miles to judge bonny babies. This thwarts the ambitions of Sir Aylmer no end. He starts ‘like a tiger that sees its Indian villager being snatched away from it.’ His face, already mauve, becomes an imperial purple.
- Uncle Dynamite also describes the emotions of Hermione, a young authoress, who finds that her royalty earnings are likely to go up substantially but her father is conniving to rob the publisher of his means to publish her work. Her feelings are said to be even more poignant than those of ‘wolves which overtake sleighs and find no Russian peasant aboard and of tigers deprived of their Indian coolie just as they are sitting down to lunch.’
- In Full Moon, Freddie, at Gally’s suggestion, smuggles Bill Lister back into Blandings Castle disguised as a false-bearded gardener, having paid off Angus McAllister. Lister soon ruins things, however, when he mistakes Veronica’s mother, Lady Hermione, for a cook and tries to bribe her to pass a note to Prudence. Later on, when Freddie appears to be whole-heartedly welcoming Lister after the latter has been asked to leave, Lady Hermione is found twitching her hands and has gleaming eyes. She is then likened to the puma of an Indian jungle about to pounce upon its prey.
- In Piccadilly Jim, Jimmy has a unique style of proposing to Ann. He points out that if he were to go out of her life, she would be miserable. She would have nobody to fight with. She would be like the female jaguar of the Indian jungle who expresses her affection for her mate ‘by biting him shrewdly in the fleshy part of the leg, getting a shock one day to find that the mate has simply vanished.’
- In ‘The Story of Cedric’, Mr. Mulliner Speaking, when Cedric crawls on all fours on the floor, his teeth are clenched and his eyes gleam with a strange light, he is said to look like an ‘exact replica of the hunting cheetah of Indian jungle stalking its prey.’
- In the same narrative, when he cries out aloud, he sounds like an Indian peasant who, ‘while sauntering on the banks of the Ganges, suddenly finds himself being bitten in half by a crocodile.’
- ‘Leave it to Algy’, A Few Quick Ones depicts Purkiss, having handed over a five-pound note to Bingo, giving a defiant look at Algernon Aubrey. His look gets likened to that of an Indian coolie, who, when he is safe up a tree, may give it to the baffled crocodile at the foot of it.
- In The Girl in Blue, Jerry chooses to celebrate his triumph at the grill room of the Barribault’s which is said to be a ‘stamping ground of Texas millionaires and Indian Maharajas.’
- In Luck of the Bodkins, Mr. Llewellyn wonders if his sister-in-law has ‘mistaken him for Rockefeller, Pierpont Morgan, Death Valley Scotty or one of those Indian Maharajas.’
- In Bachelor’s Anonymous, Sally realizes the true nature of Joseph Pickering while sitting in the lobby at Barribault’s, infested by Texas millionaires and Indian maharajas.
- In Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin, Monty waits for Gertrude to show up in the lobby of Barribault’s world-famous hotel, the doors of which normally swivel around only to admit Texan millionaires and Indian Maharajas. The doors then revolve yet again to admit an elderly man with a face like a horse, Mr. J. B. Butterwick, who promptly proceeds to inform him that Gertrude will not be lunching with him on the day.
- The story The Man Who Disliked Cats in The Man Upstairs speaks of Hotel Jules Priaulx in Paris. When rich people of any nationality come over to stay there, they often bring their pets along with. If an Indian prince has two dromedaries for company, the other one brings along a giraffe. The giraffe is reported to drink a dozen of the best champagne every day, so as to keep his coat in good shape. Young lions and alligators also pop up once in a while.
(Continued)
Notes:
The inspiration for this essay comes from the scholarly work done by Ms. Masha Lebedeva, who had earlier whipped up a research paper entitled The Russian Salad by P. G. Wodehouse.
The author expresses his sincere gratitude to an eminent expert on Plummy matters for having spared the time to go through a part of this composition and provide insightful suggestions. Some fans of P. G. Wodehouse have also suggested improvements in its contents.
Thanks are also due to Mr. Suvarna Sanyal for dishing out the main illustration in Part 1; also, to Ms. Sneha Shoney, who has edited the text.
Those of you who wish to cruise through this essay in its entirety may kindly write to akb_usha@rediffmail.com for a PDF version of the complete document to be mailed to them.
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