A History of the Mahrattas v1.c24.10

v1.c24.10

³ The mode of recovering a debt is by a species of dunning called tuqazu; the most common practice is to hire a few of those men who make it a trade. They sit at the debtor’s door, follow him wherever he goes, and crave with humility, or demand with insolence, according to time and circumstance. By the invariable rule of the country, the debtor is obliged to subsist the duns thus placed upon him, and as they are adepts in the art of tormenting, protected also by the great power of opinion, they soon contrive to render the debtor sufficiently miserable. But if the debtor be obstinate, and the creditor think himself equal to the task, he may undertake the tuqazu by placing his debtor in dhurna; the creditor seats himself by his debtor, or at his door, during which, whilst the former abstains from food it would be accounted infamous and dishonourable for the latter to eat or drink. Bappoojee Naik practised first the tuqazu, and afterwards the dhurna. I refer my English readers to an account of dhurna