Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/271

Rh children or parents, even that selfish and vehement longing we have for "the flesh of our flesh, the bone of our bone." This harmless legend is worked by Dayárám into various orgies of songs whose luscious sweetness and witchery of style have done more than any other social vagaries to perpetuate the horrors of those dens of iniquities, the Vaishnava Máhárájs' Mandirs. In this respect Dayárám's poetry works in Gujarát as "procuress of the lords of Hell." But the days of street garbás in Gujarat are numbered. Surat was head-quarters of these midnight songs, and attracted, during the nava rátri, visitors from out-lying places, even from so far as Bombay.

To be allowed to join a garbá was an honour, and none but your Langtrys and Wests could claim the privilege. The ambitious songstress must have a figure like the cypress, her eyes a pair of young lotuses, her mouth a full moon, her teeth a row of pearls or pomegranate seeds, her breath like citron, her lips corals, her forehead virgin marble, her nose the parrot's beak, her hair like the graceful nágavel, her cheeks