Author: Khushwant Singh
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 200
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780143415800
Description
A rare collection of essays that invites the reader to revisit a vanished era of sahibs and memsahibs. From Lord Mountbatten to Peggy Holroyde to Maurice and Taya Zinkin, Britishers who lived and worked in India reminisce about topics and points of interest as varied as the Indian Civil Service and the Roshanara Club, shikar and hazri, the Amateur Cine Society of India and the Doon School, Rudyard Kipling and Mahatma Gandhi.
Selected from a series of articles commissioned by Khushwant Singh when he was the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India these delightfully individualistic and refreshingly candid writings reveal a fascinating array of British attitudes, experiences, observations, fond memories, the occasional short-lived grouses and, above all, a deep and abiding affection and respect for India.
COMMENTS:
‘Thus we both were tied to India with every possible bond of memory and affection, which clearly played an important part in our lives… as the last Viceroy and indeed when I stayed on as the first Governor-General of the independent country of India.’
—Lord Mountbatten
“A Collection of essays that makes compelling reading... These delightfully personal accounts usher the reader into the bygone era of sahibs and mem-sahibs replete with racist clubs and Shikar… [They] reflect a kaleidoscope of attitudes, experiences and idiosyncrasies.”
---- Deccan Herald
“A Reveling work that gives one a glimpse of another side of the imperial ruler to show that “not all Britishers were a racist lot.”
---- Free Press Journal
“Khushwant Singh is a fountain of fertile ideas… [He] has solved our problem of what to give as a present on any occasion and to all sorts of friends.”
--- Meghnad Desai, Outlook
Contents
Preface
1. What India Meant to Me – Lord Mountbatten of Burma
2. India Educated me – Escott Reid
3. The Splendour of India – Rawland Owen
4. Under the Indian Sun – Stanley Jepson
5. At Home in India – Sir Arthur Dean
6. Bitten by The Indian Bug – Horace Alexander
7. My Discovery of India – Taya Zinkin
8. My Indian Interlude – H.A.N. Medd
9. A Spell in Hindustan – Philip Crosland
10. The Indian I Love – J.A.K. Martyn
11. India Calling – Leonard Marsland Gander
12. A Long Love Affair – Peggy Holroyde
13. From British Raj to Stri-Rajya – Arthur
14. Those Indian Days – Phillip Knightley
15. From Revolt to Love – Maurice Zinkin
16. More Gallimaufry – C.R. Mandy
17. A Changing Scene – Rawle Knox
18. A Distant Involvement – Sir Norman Kipping
19. From an Editiorial Chair – Evan Charlton
20. Winds of Change – Cedric Day
21. A Spacious Life – Oscar H. Brown
22. Love and Hate – Lionel Fielden