DIARY
0 n 10 August I read a four-column headline in letters of matching size, which ran: 'Royal fusillade salutes princess with- out name,' and this, of all places on the front page of the Times. At the editorial desk this must have been considered very smart work. But I, a Bengali Babu born in the reign of Queen Victoria and one of those who were great sticklers for gram- mar, was puzzled. Was the fusillade, I asked, by the Royalty? In that case, the present English sovereign must be another Herod the Great. Or was it on the Royal- ty? If so, there must be a revolutionary party in England which was carrying out its own version of the slaughter of the Czar and his family at Ekaterinburg. The news story removed the ambiguity, for it said: `The fusillade marked the birth of the as yet unnamed princess,' and with elegant variation added that this fusillade was only a 'popgun salute compared with that loosed off on the Queen's birthday which had a volley of 62 guns'. But the clarifica- tion only horrified me. The word fusillade brought to my mind the painting by Goya which showed the massacre of the popu- lace of Madrid on 3 May 1808 by the French infantry, while the word volley recalled the slaughter of the insurgents of Paris on 13 Venderniaire. Yet the true meaning of the two words fusillade and volley is given in all English dictionaries. I cite mine:
Fusillade: A simultaneous discharge of many firearms [small arms = fusils, of course] in a rapid succession of discharges, hence execu- tion by such discharges. Volley: In modern artillery fire, one round per gun in a battery, fired without regard to the order of firing or the intervals of time between shots.
The correct word to employ was, of course, salvo, whose meaning is given in my dictionary as follows: In modern artillery fire one round per gun in a battery fired in a prescribed order and with a prescribed interval of time between shots. Naval gunnery: The simultaneous discharge of two or more guns of the same battery [turret] at the same target.
I am not surprised that the word salvo has been forgotten. It was current in English vocabulary only when British pro- consuls landed at distant ports to the salvo of 21 guns, and when Britannia ruled the waves. In an age of class hatred in Britain, only words with sanguinary associations would come naturally to all journalists, who have to provide vicarious fare for their readers' hatreds. But what grieved me was not so much the malapropisms in them- selves as the reflection cast by them on the men of the -Royal Horse Artillery. As far back as 1911, I had acquired an immense admiration for their shakos, uniforms and bearing after seeing a picture in the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
NIRAD C. CHAUDHURI
which showed them kneeling behind their quick-firing 13-pounders. I did not like to think that those elegant soldiers were capable of slaughtering their countrymen.
ut my serious discomfiture arose
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from a different implication of the misuse of words by contemporary English writers. It seems to convert a flippant joke I indulge in with my countrymen settled here into real bragging. Although I have now lived for 18 years in England and have not revisited India even once, I totally reject the status of immigrant. So when those whom I consider to be genuine immigrants ask me why, I say: 'Because in the first instance I did not come here of my own will as you did of yours, but was brought over; next, a true Indian immigrant becomes wealthy in Britain whereas I have become almost a pauper.' Hearing this, they ask me, and quite justifiably: 'Then why do you live in England?' I reply — and this is the joke: 'In order to show Englishmen how their fathers dressed, how their fathers ate and drank, and how their fathers wrote English.' What I mean is that insofar as I have adopted English ways I have the traditional English manner. The misuse of English would make me feel that I was actually trying to teach Englishmen their language.
But in the two other activities which I include in my joke, the present practice of Englishmen would also make me a deliber- ate teacher. Let me give only one example in respect of clothes. Some years ago, I had a pair of heavy flannel trousers made for myself for winter wear. An elderly English neighbour, who had antique furniture in his house, remarked on seeing them on me: 'My father used to wear trousers like that.'
It would have been an even more absurd pretension in me to appear as an example to Englishmen in regard to eating or drinking. Yet something I read recently, again in the Times, made me fear so. It was an article on wines by Mrs Kulukundis, better known as Miss Susan Hampshire, which gave me that feeling. The article itself was unexceptionable, but its pre- sentation, to my thinking, was not. It was accompanied by an illustration of three bottles, with this heading: `SUSAN'S To Six' The middle bottle was of a Petrus 1970, with the following. caption: 1970 Petrus claret [was the word claret necessary?] — possibly the most famous and expensive wine in the world. Conley and Barrow, 12 Helmet Row, London EC1. £287.50 I was startled for I myself have Petrus which is older still, and I was not aware that it was a plutocratic wine for plutocrats. I have lived in England on what even the English working class calls the poverty level, yet I bought this wine and others of similar standing because I thought if I had to adopt English ways I had to do that in an English gentlemanly manner. Also, drink- ing alcohol is a major sin in Hindu ethics and I did not take a drop of that substancd until I was almost 50. So, when I did sin deliberately as a Hindu, I thought I should not do so in a mean style. As to Miss Hampshire, I could not forget what I had read about great actresses. They, I had been told, finally merged their real perso- nalities in the great roles they played. So, Rachel became Phaedra by playing the title-role in Racine's Phedre; Sarah Bern- hardt became Marguerite Gautier (=Violetta in La Traviata) by taking the title-role in La Dame aux Camellias. I wondered therefore whether an actress who had taken the part of Lady Glencora with such dazzling success had not similarly become Lady Glencora in her feelings. She had — Lady Glencora that is — arranged a rather garish party at Gatherum Castle, and the Duke of Omnium, her husband, did not like it. He said, 'There is a — a— a — I was almost going to say vulgarity about it which distresses me.' Lady Glencora jumped up from her chair, exclaiming, `Vulgarity!' The Duke withdrew the word. But his lady sulked for days. I asked myself: 'Did Susan Hampshire sulk over the presentation of her article?' But perhaps my joke is becoming dangerously like boasting.
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