Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 25.14.10

25.14.10

As for the Hôli itself, it is again a festival of Hindoo institution, but held so sacred amongst our delicate Grandees, and so very obligatory, that they never fail to spend a deal of money in dancers, and such kind of spectacles, and especially, in making presents to low people, who, at such a particular time, are in possession of acknowledging those favours by the liberty of giving to the donors, as well as to each other, a great deal of abusive and shameful language, and that too, not in obscure terms, but in the broadest and coarsest language, and by naming every thing by its proper term, without any regard to rank, station, or decency. In one of these Holies I happened to be at Moorshood-abad, when Mubarec-ed-dowlah was circumcising his children : a ceremony in which he spent thirty-seven thousand rupees in clothes and presents to his slave-girls, to his favourite women, to his principal eunuchs, and to those of his mother, Babboo-begum ; and all this, whilst the screams and complaints of his creditors were rending the air. It was remarked that amongst all those he so complimented, he had been sedulous in distinguishing one Saadet-mend-qhan, Overseer of the household of that Princess.