The women in this secluded enclosure seemed to be enjoying themselves much more than the conventional Englishwomen below them. There was a table with a varied assortment of non-alcoholic drinks, and many kinds of cakes and sweets. Each lady had her silver pan-box, and made pan for her friends, all chatting and laughing with the utmost freedom and good-fellowship. They do not seem to feel it a deprivation at all to be compelled to pass their lives with women. I am sure they would feel very ill at ease if they thought that they could be seen by any man except their husband, brother, or immediate relative.
I had an example of what instinct will do in the fear of being seen by some one outside of the family circle. Mme. Naidu and I called upon a Mohammedan lady who was strictly “purdah.” We were taken into a drawing-room furnished in European fashion, where the father-in-law of our hostess was chatting with another gentleman. The stranger left immediately, but the father-in-law remained to talk with me while Mme. Naidu went in search of the mistress of the house. She returned soon, and said to the man, “You must leave,” and after his departure the lady entered. When she sat down she noticed that one of the blinds of the window was open, and she drew her sari across her face and spoke to Mme. Naidu, who went to the window and closed the blind. Even that did not satisfy her, and a servant was called, who saw that all the windows were securely closed and that no one could possibly look into the room from the outside. It seemed a useless precaution to me, as the windows opened on to a garden, and no one could pass unless some member of the household. She laughed apologetically and said: “I know what you think, but I cannot sit here with any degree of comfort if I think some one, a servant or one of my husband’s guests, might pass by. It is instinct; my mother and my mother’s mother were ‘purdah’ women, and it is in the blood.”
She asked us to come to her rooms and look at some new clothing. Her rooms were big and rather bare, as are most rooms in this hot country, but the furniture was all European. Bed, dressing-table, and chairs all looked as if made in England or France. She had a servant bring her pan-box. This giving of pan is the first thing offered to a guest on arrival and the last thing on going away. Her pan-box was of silver, about nine inches wide by twelve long. It had a shallow tray in the top, in which was kept in tiny compartments the betel-nut and spices. In the bottom of the box, covered with a damp cloth, were the leaves. The hostess takes a leaf, covers it with a thin layer of lime, and with a pair of scissors breaks a betel-nut into small pieces, puts it with half a dozen different spices into the leaf, folds it up, sticking a clove through the leaf as a fastener, and hands it to the guest. The guest removes the clove and places the leaf in the mouth, where it makes a huge bunch on the side of the face until it is slowly masticated. It gives forth a juice which colours the inside of the mouth and the teeth a dark red, but not permanently, as it rinses quite easily. The pan has a spicy taste, and leaves the mouth feeling deliciously clean, I presume owing to the lime in it. Many of the great houses have a servant or slave whose only duty is to make pan for the inmates of the zenana. One such servant said she made five hundred a day and her wrist became quite lame from time to time caused by cutting the betel-nut.