11-15-2008, 12:28 AM
Book Revie from Pioneer, 14 Nov 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->They came, they saw, they conquered, then, they fell in love
Sahibs Who Loved India is an interesting book for post-colonial readers, best appreciated without the legacy of the past weighing heavily on the reader's sense of history, feels Debraj Mookerjee
Sahibs Who Loved India
Author : Compiled and Edited by Khushwant Singh
Publisher
enguin Viking,
Price: Rs 325
The book under review is a compilation born out of a strange quirk of fate. Here is the story in the words of Khushwant Singh, who has compiled and edited it, "Sometime in February this year, my son Rahul, who lives in Mumbai, redirected a bound manuscript of articles I had commissioned over thirty years ago for the now defunct Illustrated Weekly of India. The man who sent it was Philip Knightley, once editor of the The Sunday Times of London. He was not sure whether or not I was still around, so he sent it to my son to do whatever he wanted with it."
Sahibs Who Loved India presents an interesting kettle of fish for the post-colonial reader. Off hand, it is a collection of personal pieces by Englishmen and women who worked in one capacity or another in the last days of the Raj. They were all, Khushwant Singh reminds us, people who "stayed away from racist clubs, went out of their way to befriend Indians and maintained contacts with them after returning to England. Some of them even lent tacit support to the freedom movement and stayed on in India ..." Nevertheless, there is solid postcolonial angst among many in India today. This constituency would choose to resists even the friendly word sent across the seas. The politics behind such a position is almost inexorable, and almost difficult to argue with. Perhaps the time has come when we can, indeed must, go beyond the narrow discourse of postcolonial engagement with the West. Only when we do so can we rightly claim to have heaved off the baggage of an unequal relationship we have carried for so long. Khushwant Singh's book is best appreciated if read without the legacy of the past weighing heavy on the reader's sense of history.
In EM Forster's Passage to India, when Aziz and Fielding take their last ride together, a rock bifurcates their path, as if to suggest Indians and Englishmen cannot ride together as friends. "Why can't we be friends now?" Aziz asks. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But India answers: "No, not yet... No, not there." Contributor Philip Crosland, who ended his India career as General Manager of the Statesman, having worked as Resident Editor earlier, captures the essence of Forster's sentiment well, though from a happier perspective: "India's freedom ... removed the last psychological impediment to uninhibited friendship between individuals of the two races and the Briton ... ceased to be a ruler and became a friend." The 22 memoirs, contributed by bureaucrats, journalists, educationalists, surveyors, engineers and soldiers are marked by the outpouring of friendship and love, for the people of India, and the country's myriad cultural and aesthetic nuances.
An interesting aspect of these narratives is the occasional reference of people and places that have a larger than life place in our consciousness today. Crosland writes about the Indian Coffee House on Chittaranjan Avenue which the staffers of Statesman frequented. Divided into the house of 'Commons' and 'Lords', the coffee house seated an assemblage of worthies: Satyajit Ray, one among a "galaxy of talent from an advertising agency ... yet to make a film, but a quarter way through making Pather Panchali. He also speaks about meeting Chidananda Das Gupta (film critic), Aparna Sen's father! Of course there are numerous meetings mentioned by other contributors where the name of Mrs Gandhi (as a child), the Mahatma and Netaji keep cropping up, but sans the reverence associated with their posthumous fame.
Philip Knightley, who collected and despatched these 22 pieces to Khushwant Singh through his son, contributes a lively piece. He landed in India en route to Australia. Instead, he married an Indian girl and stayed on, learning to alter his 'cycle of life', as it were, upon the advice of his physician, Dr Massa, "a spiritual Easterner who, by mistake, was born in the West." In general terms, Knightley writes, "Westerners eat and drink too much, take their work too seriously and think sleeping in the afternoon is decadent." He himself chose to eat "nothing for breakfast, dal and a chapatti or two for lunch, and a light dinner. I bought a motor scooter, took up tennis, cut my living allowance to Rs 10 a day and never felt better in my life." In tenor and sentiment, Knightley's confession mirrors what many of the contributors continually stress -- that India demands both an effort at learning (about its infinitesimal details) and, perhaps, a greater effort at unlearning (the historical baggage that is brought along from the home country).
Sahibs Who Loved India is a book born out of love. It is the leitmotif of the book. Every writer prefaces his or her piece with the untiring love and affection felt for India and Indians. A cynical mind might interpret this as the patronising tilt of a humble master. Sometimes it is easier to love and be emotional, than to be rational and respectful. Your innate humanity can make you love the beggar on the street for a split second, but you wouldn't think of having him over for dinner, would you?
These pieces were written some thirty or more years back. The terms of engagement between free India and the West were still being defined back then. Today, many an Englishman settled here, as bankers or project engineers, would be chary of overstating their 'love' for the country; it would almost be politically incorrect to do so. In defence of those who have written these 22 pieces, India perhaps presented to them a conundrum that was best understood through love and affection. Many of them state their desire to be reborn here. Should their wish come true, they might find some other vocabulary to express their feelings for India.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->They came, they saw, they conquered, then, they fell in love
Sahibs Who Loved India is an interesting book for post-colonial readers, best appreciated without the legacy of the past weighing heavily on the reader's sense of history, feels Debraj Mookerjee
Sahibs Who Loved India
Author : Compiled and Edited by Khushwant Singh
Publisher
enguin Viking, Price: Rs 325
The book under review is a compilation born out of a strange quirk of fate. Here is the story in the words of Khushwant Singh, who has compiled and edited it, "Sometime in February this year, my son Rahul, who lives in Mumbai, redirected a bound manuscript of articles I had commissioned over thirty years ago for the now defunct Illustrated Weekly of India. The man who sent it was Philip Knightley, once editor of the The Sunday Times of London. He was not sure whether or not I was still around, so he sent it to my son to do whatever he wanted with it."
Sahibs Who Loved India presents an interesting kettle of fish for the post-colonial reader. Off hand, it is a collection of personal pieces by Englishmen and women who worked in one capacity or another in the last days of the Raj. They were all, Khushwant Singh reminds us, people who "stayed away from racist clubs, went out of their way to befriend Indians and maintained contacts with them after returning to England. Some of them even lent tacit support to the freedom movement and stayed on in India ..." Nevertheless, there is solid postcolonial angst among many in India today. This constituency would choose to resists even the friendly word sent across the seas. The politics behind such a position is almost inexorable, and almost difficult to argue with. Perhaps the time has come when we can, indeed must, go beyond the narrow discourse of postcolonial engagement with the West. Only when we do so can we rightly claim to have heaved off the baggage of an unequal relationship we have carried for so long. Khushwant Singh's book is best appreciated if read without the legacy of the past weighing heavy on the reader's sense of history.
In EM Forster's Passage to India, when Aziz and Fielding take their last ride together, a rock bifurcates their path, as if to suggest Indians and Englishmen cannot ride together as friends. "Why can't we be friends now?" Aziz asks. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But India answers: "No, not yet... No, not there." Contributor Philip Crosland, who ended his India career as General Manager of the Statesman, having worked as Resident Editor earlier, captures the essence of Forster's sentiment well, though from a happier perspective: "India's freedom ... removed the last psychological impediment to uninhibited friendship between individuals of the two races and the Briton ... ceased to be a ruler and became a friend." The 22 memoirs, contributed by bureaucrats, journalists, educationalists, surveyors, engineers and soldiers are marked by the outpouring of friendship and love, for the people of India, and the country's myriad cultural and aesthetic nuances.
An interesting aspect of these narratives is the occasional reference of people and places that have a larger than life place in our consciousness today. Crosland writes about the Indian Coffee House on Chittaranjan Avenue which the staffers of Statesman frequented. Divided into the house of 'Commons' and 'Lords', the coffee house seated an assemblage of worthies: Satyajit Ray, one among a "galaxy of talent from an advertising agency ... yet to make a film, but a quarter way through making Pather Panchali. He also speaks about meeting Chidananda Das Gupta (film critic), Aparna Sen's father! Of course there are numerous meetings mentioned by other contributors where the name of Mrs Gandhi (as a child), the Mahatma and Netaji keep cropping up, but sans the reverence associated with their posthumous fame.
Philip Knightley, who collected and despatched these 22 pieces to Khushwant Singh through his son, contributes a lively piece. He landed in India en route to Australia. Instead, he married an Indian girl and stayed on, learning to alter his 'cycle of life', as it were, upon the advice of his physician, Dr Massa, "a spiritual Easterner who, by mistake, was born in the West." In general terms, Knightley writes, "Westerners eat and drink too much, take their work too seriously and think sleeping in the afternoon is decadent." He himself chose to eat "nothing for breakfast, dal and a chapatti or two for lunch, and a light dinner. I bought a motor scooter, took up tennis, cut my living allowance to Rs 10 a day and never felt better in my life." In tenor and sentiment, Knightley's confession mirrors what many of the contributors continually stress -- that India demands both an effort at learning (about its infinitesimal details) and, perhaps, a greater effort at unlearning (the historical baggage that is brought along from the home country).
Sahibs Who Loved India is a book born out of love. It is the leitmotif of the book. Every writer prefaces his or her piece with the untiring love and affection felt for India and Indians. A cynical mind might interpret this as the patronising tilt of a humble master. Sometimes it is easier to love and be emotional, than to be rational and respectful. Your innate humanity can make you love the beggar on the street for a split second, but you wouldn't think of having him over for dinner, would you?
These pieces were written some thirty or more years back. The terms of engagement between free India and the West were still being defined back then. Today, many an Englishman settled here, as bankers or project engineers, would be chary of overstating their 'love' for the country; it would almost be politically incorrect to do so. In defence of those who have written these 22 pieces, India perhaps presented to them a conundrum that was best understood through love and affection. Many of them state their desire to be reborn here. Should their wish come true, they might find some other vocabulary to express their feelings for India.
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