THE VAQUIL.
Another "character," as busy as the Hajaam and about as popular as the Márwári, is the mofussil Vakeel (Pleader), or, as Persian scholars would call him, the Va'quil.
The Va'quil may be described as a column of vapour issuing from the Ocean of Emptiness. When condensed, after repeated manipulations, by the Professor of Law, and mixed with a strong solution of brass, the thing is rolled up before Sir Michael Westropp,[1] who licks it into shape, generally after tiffin. The exercise is said to be very exhilarating for both parties. As soon as Sir Michael has licked into shape and breathed life into it, the Va'quil starts up as if from a state of Nirvana[2] rubs its eyes, stretches its arms, and, shuffling out of the "august presence," passes the rest of the day in chuprásis'[3] company. Under cover of night the Va'quil steals homewards, and hiding its guilty head in the bosom of its greasy quilt, it cries for relief.
His First Start.
Next morning the Va'quil is placed in a cage on a fashionable road, where it can be handled, from a safe distance, for about Rs. 3. The fee rises from Rs. 3 to Rs. 30, according to circumstances. But it is very seldom that the fee comes. This process of the Va'quil's profitless exhibition is technically termed "vegetation." In this state it remains from six to twelve months, when it begins to bud forth into something like human appearance.
The Va'quil with the Márwári.
At this stage the Va'quil is taken in hand by a Márwári, or such another worthy recognised by the Court as Dalái[4] or Mukhtyár. But its existence is not yet generally recognised. It has more leisure than it cares to have, which it devotes to the columns of the Amrita Bazar Patrika,[5] the pages of Malthus, of the Sarvajanik Sabha, or the Theosophist.
He Dabbles in Politics
The Va'quil is now about thirty, and has already joined several free institutions where it can sit cross-legged and read the newspaper and discuss the leading article with friends. This it does in the evening. Occasionally it borrows a Famine Report, on which it pores for nights together. The result of this lucubration is a lengthy critique on Sir Richard Temple's administration, especially his famine and forest policy. At times the Va'quil draws a caricature of the late Governor, and, when it can afford to do so, it buys cheap photographs of him, Sir John Strachey, and others, which it hangs in its room head downwards. The practice may or may not have a significance.
The Va'quil Retires.
At forty the Va'quil becomes staid and sober. Its youthful exuberance, which found vent in elocutional antics in obscure reading-rooms is now exchanged for argumentative criticism of the measures of Government, at public meetings. It also takes to strictly religious and patriotic modes of life—disposes of its offspring in marriage, retires to "the original town,"[6] encourages indigenous art by using everything that is made in India, and generally dies at the age of sixty. The Va'quil dies, as a rule, in "fairly good circumstances," though it does not live so. Formerly it used to migrate into the mofussil immediately on coming out of the larva state, but the Collector and his brood of assistants having made the districts quite unendurable for it, the Va'quil seldom goes further than Poona on one side or Ahmedabad on the other.
His Composition, Nature, etc.
As a chemical compound, the Va'quil may be analysed into butter, brass, and asafœtida.
Physiologically it takes after the kangaroo, and has much of that intellectual force which is believed to be derived from constant indulgence in vegetable marrow.
Phrenologists are agreed that the most prominent characteristics of the Va'quil are the bumps of combativeness, of secretiveness, and obstructiveness.