Abdul Karim | c. 1863-? The second of Queen Victoria's servants with whom she had a much-talked-about relationship, beginning in 1887 The Queen's first two Indian servants, whose photographs still hang in her dressing room just beneath one of John Brown and his brothers, were Mohammed Buxsh and Abdul Karim. They entered her service three days after the Golden Jubilee. The former was large, bearded and genial, but little else is known of him, for he never climbed higher than the rank of bearer. But the latter became more loathed even than John Brown. On the day they kissed her feet and began to wait on her at Windsor, the Queen wrote that Abdul Karim was 'much younger [he was twenty-four], much lighter, tall, and with a fine serious countenance.' ... Her courtiers, suspicious that the Munshi ['Teacher'] was working for his own Moslem ends and endangering the Queen's impartiality in the agonising religious problems of India, worked to discredit him.... But Abdul was clever and quick-witted and charming, and the Queen cried fiddlesticks at her household.... Soon after the Munshi's arrival, the Queen recorded in her journal: 'Am learning a few words of Hindustani to speak to my servants. It is a great interest to me, for both the language and the people.' The Munshi soon explained to the Queen that waiting was beneath him, since at home he had been a clerk. Photographs in which he appeared as a menial were speedily destroyed, and his advancement began. Before the eyes of attendants who could hardly bring themselves to speak to an Indian, the Munshi was given Karim Cottage at Balmoral, Frogmore Cottage at Windsor, and Arthur Cottage at Osborne. Despatch boxes about Indian affairs were shown to him, his advice was solicited, and he was taking part in the holy privacy of family theatricals, as a figure in the 'tableau vivant' of an Indian bazaar. -Marina Warner, Queen Victoria's Sketchbook