While in Hyderabad I saw a great deal of this wonderfully attractive woman, who looks like a young girl, but who is the mother of children nearly as big as herself. She herself is not “purdah,” and she has violated the customs of her caste by marrying a man of another caste. She goes to public entertainments and lives the life of an Englishwoman. I went with her to see the “sports,” that form of entertainment which always follow the English wherever they go. They were held at the race track, and in the grand stand were the entire foreign community, with a mixture of Indian gentlemen. We watched the riders in the field below, and I must confess the Indian gentlemen easily carried the honours. They are wonderful horsemen, and are most picturesque. I think there is no handsomer man in the world than the high-class Indian gentleman. With his clear brown skin, his large black eyes, his stately carriage, and magnificent physique, accentuated by the pugaree or turban on his head, he is a picture that, once seen, cannot easily be forgotten. The average Englishman looks either too fat or too thin, does not hold himself well, has generally, if a resident in the East, a most unhealthy complexion, and in comparison with his Indian neighbour makes a very poor showing.
Mme. Naidu was the only Indian woman in the grand stand, and after tea was served, she asked me if I would like to visit the Indian women. We went upstairs to an enclosed room, which was filled with Indian ladies, who could see all that was going on in the grounds below, but were protected from view by the carved woodwork enclosing the room. They came to a side entrance in their carriages or motors; a screen of canvas was made from their carriage to the entrance so that they could pass immediately from their carriage to a covered stairway, themselves unseen.
There were about twenty ladies, dressed in most brilliant colours and decked with an immense amount of jewellery. One woman had seven piercings in her ears, in four of which were set small buttons of turquoises, and in the others great hoops of gold in which were hanging pearls about the size of a pea. In her right nostril was a diamond and in her left a ruby. Her arms were covered with bracelets, and there were five necklaces of diamonds around her neck. Her trousers, the ugly trousers of the Mohammedan lady, were of bright pink brocade, the tunic was of white, and over it all was a long veil of light blue gauze. One would imagine a glaring clash of colours, but all this riot of colour blends and makes the right setting for the dark beauty of these Indian women. They are extremely pretty, with the colouring of an Italian or Spaniard from the South; their big black eyes are shaded by long silky lashes, their noses are most delicate, and they have exquisitely shaped mouths. I do not think that I saw an ugly woman all the time I was visiting the “purdah” women of India. Some of them with age become a little too stout, but their dress disguises the figure if too well blessed with flesh, and softens harsh outlines if too thin.