Author: Fanny Parkes
Editor(s): William Darlympe
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 354
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780143029885
Description
Fanny Parkes, who lived in India between 1822 and 1846, was the ideal travel writer-courageous, indefatigably curious and determinedly independent. This delightful journal traces her journey from prim memsahib, married to a minor civil servant of the Raj, to eccentric sitar-playing Indophile, fluent in Urdu, critical of British rule and passionate in her appreciation of Indian culture.
Fanny is fascinated by everything, from the trial of the thugs and the efficacy of opium on headaches to the adorning of a Hindu bride. To read her is to get as close as one can to a true picture of early colonial India- the sacred and the profane, the violent and the beautiful, the straight-laced sahibs and the more eccentric White Mughals who fell in love with India and did their best, like Fanny, to build bridges across cultures.
REVIEWS
Fanny Parkes, a redoubtable English woman who cocked a snook at the English Raj and delighted in Indian India, is one of the greatest travel writers of all times.
-Mark Tully
Fanny was a one-off, a free spirit who defied convention at every step, reveling in the intimacy of her contact with Indian India in a way that makes her account extraordinarily modern and readable.
-Charles Allen
Contents
Introduction
Publisher’s Note
Glossary
Map
Dedication
Invocation
Departure from England
Carnicobar
Life in India
Residence in Calcutta
Resident in Calcutta
Departure from the Presidency
Life in the Mofussil
Residence at Allahabad
Life in the Zenana
Residence at Prag
Sketches of Allahabad
Removal to Cawnpore - Confessions of a Thug
Residence at Cawnpore
The Thug’s Dice-Execution of Eleven Thugs
Residence at Cawnpore-The Dewali
Scenes in Oude
Revelations of Life in the Zenana
The Return to Allahabad-Execution of Twenty-five Thugs
Scenes at Allahabad
Life in the Zenana
Adventures in the East
The Great Fair at Allahabad
The Nut Log
The Cholera
The Muharram
White Ants and Cold Mornings for Hunting
Pilgrimage to the Taj
Pilgrimage to the Taj
The Taj Mahal
Pleasant Days at Agra
Revelations of Life in the Zenana
Life in the Zenana and Chita Hunting
Fatehpur Sikri and Colonel Gardner
The Marriage
The Barat
The Chaotree
The Mahratta Camp and Zenana
The Nawab Hakim Mehndi and the City of Kannauj
The Mahratta Camp and Scenes in the Zenana
The Mahrattas at Allahabad
Tufans in the East
From Ghazipur to Ballia
Sketches in Bengal-The Sunderbands
The Famine at Kannauj
Pleasant Days in Camp
Ruins of Delhi
Ancient Delhi-The Zenana Ghar
Departure for the Hills-Landowr
Picturesque Scenes in the Hills
Life in the Hills
Departure from the Hills
Departure from Allahabad
Arrival in Calcutta-the Madagascar
Departure from St. Helena
The Farewell