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The wives of British officials in colonial India
memsahibs, as they were called wrote extensively about their struggles of living in India. In my study of the literature produced by them, I often came across accounts of boredom, loneliness and melancholia, as they were frequently left alone in their remote bungalows when their husbands were on
raj duty. Housework did not take time because there was always an abundance of
ayahs, cooks, drivers and so on; unless they had a hobby, these wives had very little to do all day.
The
raj required little contribution from women; even if they wanted to be involved, they were consistently excluded from imperial activities. The lack of work and the utter lack of a purpose caused further boredom. Making matters worse was the absence of company or regular socializing around the lonely
Jasvinder Kaur
BEFORE the advent of European powers, people in the subcontinent were not using any western-style elevated furniture. Early travellers to India have chronicled accounts of people sitting on the floor on durries or peedhis. When the Portuguese arrived in the late 15th century, they did not find any western-style furniture or trained carpenters to make it.
Many writers have described Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s durbar wherein white sheets were spread on the floor. Emily Eden (1838), sister of Lord Auckland, mentions this in her letters to her sister. WG Archer in ‘Paintings of the Sikhs’ writes that Ranjit Singh started using chairs in his durbar much later. Their design was based on early 19th century English chairs with a new kind of looped arm.