Countries | India
Melba had been invited to visit India; so in late 1922 on her way back to England, she decided to break her journey and disembark at Bombay.
In her own words Melba explained the Indian visit:
The other day a cable arrived from China asking me to give a series of concerts in that disturbed country. I was on the point of accepting when my doctors told me that it would be tantamount to suicide. So I regretfully declined. But I should love to sing in China, should love, even, to climb to the top of some remote mountain in Tibet and sing psalms with the Grand Lama.
The nearest approach I have ever made to singing songs in Tibet was I imagine when, not very long afterwards, I visited India (on my way home from Australia) and sang a long trill in the Taj Mahal. It was in some ways the most uncanny sensation I have ever experienced. The moonlight, the warm, scented darkness, the soft radiance of marble, and then – my voice echoing out in a trill which never seemed to stop. It went on, long after I had finished, until it seemed that all round my head were circling flocks of clamorous birds.
India affects different people in different ways. For some it is like a poet’s dream – a realisation of all that they have dreamt of in Beauty – for others it is a mere hell of malaria and mosquitoes. Some seemed to be affected, the moment they set foot on its soil, by the mystic atmosphere of the East, others merely treat it as a commercial proposition, a country of infinite possibilities for making money.
Frankly, the predominant emotion that comes to me when I recall India is a feeling akin to fear. I think of the teeming masses of natives dominated by so pathetically few of our own race, I think of the dark customs, the inscrutable eyes, the uncanny luxuriance of it all – and I shiver a little.
Perhaps my first experience in India may be accountable for a little of this feeling. I had received a telegram from Lord Reading, the Viceroy, asking me to stay with Their Excellencies at Simla, and when I arrived at Bombay, I found that all my means of transit had been arranged so that I should travel with every comfort.
But no amount of comfort or of civilisation in India can ever be for me more than a veneer over the unfathomable depths beneath. At Delhi, the train stopped, and I thought that I would stretch my legs and go for a walk with the A.D.C. Dusk was falling quickly and we had not gone far before I heard a strange chanting, rising and falling like a dirge.
I looked around quickly, and there coming out of the shadows, was the naked corpse of a native, borne aloft on a bier. ‘Don’t look,’ said the A.D.C. quickly. There was no need to tell me that. I had seen enough. And I shall wish, to this day, that I had stayed in the train.
Simla
Melba stayed at the Viceregal Lodge in Simla and was impressed and fascinated by her first glimpse of Imperial India. It took a forty-eight hour train journey to get there in oppressive heat. She attended an elaborate dinner party to celebrate the Viceroy’s birthday, while there.
I shall never forget my first dinner at Simla. We enter a room of immense size – as large, as it seemed to me, as a fair sized church.
Although the lights are bright, in this immensity they seem almost dim, and in the shadows, rows of native servants are lined up, all in red and gold, their black heads bent low, and their faces covered with their hands, for they may not look at their master. And then, like one man, the line sways up again, the faces are uncovered, and silently they move off on their duties.
Certainly if you like pomp you have it to the full in India.
The return journey was in a private car on the train, served by Viceregal staff. The train stopped to let them see the Dehli Fort at sunrise.
Agra and Taj Mahal
Next stop was Agra, the Maharaja’s motor car met them for the drive to his palace. That evening Melba was taken to the Taj Mahal; she was overwhelmed with its beauty. At the tomb Melba sang a few notes and her voice echoed back to her. This delighted her for it was an exact replica, unlike her recordings.
Delhi
India is a place of perpetual surprises and I had one of them soon after I left Simla, for the Viceroy had kindly arranged that I should go to Delhi and visit a Maharajah there – ‘to get some local colour,’ as he put it.
I shall never forget the moment that I met him, coming down the steps of his palace to greet me. But it was not the Maharajah who captured my attention. A large tiger cub glided at his heels and fixed me with an expression far too playful to be pleasant.
Forgetting all else, I said, in a husky voice:
‘Don’t you keep it on a chain?’
He smiled at me and answered: ‘Certainly not. He’s as tame as you are.’I was a little reassured by the perfect English in which this was spoken. (I found out afterwards that he had been educated at Wellington.) It seemed to place the tiger on a more normal basis. But I would not accompany him on a tour of inspection till it was safely locked up.
However much you may anglicise an Indian, he remains an Indian.Even though most of the furniture in the Maharajah’s palace was English, it seemed by its very surroundings to have acquired an Oriental character. We lunched together, a quite simple English lunch, but the Maharajah would not eat with us. He merely talked. And afterwards, when we went over to his other palace, there was a wonderful lake, dark, mysterious, inviting one to plunge into its depths, until one realised with a thrill of disquiet, that it was full of crocodiles.
I am afraid that the most vivid impression I carried away from that visit was not the Maharajah’s fleet of 80 motor cars, nor his many elephants, nor his quantities of peacocks. It was the sight of his bed, which appeared to be as large as an average bedroom. My host had only one wife, but a dozen could have slept in that bed without becoming aware of one another’s existence.
Melba returned to London in the P & O Liner Macedonia, arriving in November 1922.
References:
N. Melba, Melodies and Memories The Autobiography of Nellie Melba. Second edition. Pgs 220 to 223.
P Vestey, Melba A Family Memoir, Coldstream, 2000 pgs to 193.
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Our home is the Old Lilydale Court House:
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Hours of opening:
By Appointment only:
Fridays 1 to 4pm and Saturdays to Mondays 11am to 4pm.
Sundays are preferred.
Closed Public Holidays
Nellie Melba Museum
Contact Details:
Sue Thompson: 0475 219 884
[email protected]
Nellie Melba Museum
Contact Details:
Sue Thompson: 0475 219 884
[email protected]
Our home is the Old Lilydale Court House:
61 Castella Street, Lilydale 3140
Hours of opening:
By appointment only:
Fridays 1 to 4pm and Saturdays to Mondays 11am to 4pm.
Sundays are preferred.
Closed Public Holidays
Share Your Information
with Nellie Melba Museum!
Sue Thompson: 0475 219 884
[email protected]