OUTWITTING THE WATER DEMONS OF KASHMIR 



511 



"Are you ready?" 



"Yes." 



Bang went the teacher's left to the nose 

 of his pupil. 



"I thought you could defend your 

 nose !" 



"Ye-es, I can." 



The all-knowing Brahmin covers his 

 face, leaving a chink for one eye. 



"Are you ready?" 



"Yes." 



The teacher makes a feint at his oppo- 

 nent's stomach. Down comes the oriental 

 glove to protect it, and a turbaned head 

 comes forward so that a Kashmir nose 

 meets an Anglo-Saxon fist. That is 

 enough. The erstwhile omniscient stu- 

 dent owns before the class that he does 

 not know boxing and cannot take care of 

 his own facial property. 



Gymnastics being over, the boys form 

 a squad and stand at attention while a 

 prayer is said for the King-Emperor and 

 the Maharajah. Crowds of handsome 

 bearded men have been dropping in from 

 the street to watch the performance, as 

 they do daily throughout the school year. 

 They seem both impressed and interested, 

 as the band breaks forth in another 

 march and the boys file back to their 

 class-rooms. 



A THRILLING REGATTA 



There is to be one of the frequent re- 

 gattas in the afternoon, so we go back to 

 the beautiful lake where we saw the early 

 morning swimmers. It is a gay sight. 

 There are more than ioo boys in all 

 manner of craft. We go out in a little 

 boat of our own, reclining at ease on a 

 Kashmir rug, while lithe-limbed boatmen 

 pole the craft along. 



Suddenly every boat except our own 

 turns turtle. But the boys don't seem to 

 mind. They are splashing about the 

 water in lively fashion. Then they turn 

 the boats right side up, bale them out, 

 jump back in, and paddle toward the city. 

 It is all part of the game, to teach them 

 how to act in the real emergencies that 

 happen so frequently on these mountain 

 lakes. 



The Kashmiris in general, except the 

 boatman caste, not only do not learn to 

 swim, but think that if they are upset in 

 a squall water demons will catch them, 

 whether they swim or not. What these 



young men have learned has gone a long 

 way to convince the people of Kashmir 

 that a high-caste gentleman does not nec- 

 essarily need to drown merely because he 

 falls into the water. The rule is that 

 every boy must pass a swimming test be- 

 fore his fourteenth birthday. 



When compulsory swimming was first 

 introduced, more than ioo boys were 

 withdrawn from the school. 



Besides parental objection, the boys 

 themselves were timid. It was six years 

 before a crew of aristocratic youths in a 

 racing boat sculled down the main 

 "street" of Srinagar, and every rower 

 had a blanket tied around his head to dis- 

 guise himself from the jeering crowds 

 that lined the bridges. 



Now, however, things have changed. 

 The school has turned out thousands of 

 swimmers who are not only competent to 

 save life, but also to teach others to swim. 



Twenty years ago the picture was quite 

 dififerent. Some 200 dirty, evil-smelling 

 human beings squatted on the hall floor 

 with mouths open and with vacant ex- 

 pressions. They all wore the holy marks 

 of the Brahmin, a great smear of red 

 paint across their ' foreheads, but were 

 busy devouring the wisdom of the West, 

 for this wisdom meant state employment, 

 and that meant rupees. The salary might 

 not count for much, but the opportunity 

 to squeeze out bribes in other ways, as 

 their forefathers had done, was more 

 attractive. 



These creatures, some of whom were 

 20 years old and had black, bushy beards 

 from ear to ear, were called "boys." 

 Jelly-fish would have been a more appro- 

 priate term. 



The boys of the school no longer be- 

 long to the jelly-fish type, and the fame 

 of the school is no longer confined to 

 Kashmir. It is known throughout India, 

 among the workers who are striving for 

 the regeneration of the East. 



These workers — both British and Amer- 

 ican — travel into this remote country 

 during their vacations to learn wherein 

 the success of this school of Srinagar 

 lies. It was with two of these educa- 

 tional missionaries that the writer made 

 a journey to Kashmir. One result of 

 such pilgrimages is that athletics are be- 

 ing more generally emphasized in the 

 mission schools of the Ganges Valley. 



