The Music of Hindostan c6.14

c6.14

Neither street cries nor chanties are common in India in the sense in which we understand them. The typical mode of selling wares is not to take them to the customer, but to let him come to them, sit down, and open an interminable bargain. A small amount of coolie labour requires concerted action it is true, and that sometimes necessitates rhythmical motion: but the typical method of work is individual—innumerable baskets, buckets, bamboo poles, contribute their quota, but severally; many shoulders lift the dhooly (palanquin) or many heads the grand piano, but the feet break step; many hundreds of hands man the ropes of the god's car, but the effort, at the instigation of voice or even whip of perambulating priests, is spasmodic.