Sahibs who Loved India


Book Description

&Lsquo;Thus We Both Were Tied To India With Every Possible Bond Of Memory And Affection, Which Clearly Played An Important Part In Our Lives&Hellip;As The Last Viceroy And Indeed&Nbsp;When I Stayed On As The First Governor-General Of The Independent Country Of India.&Rsquo; &Mdash;Lord Mountbatten 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,&Nbsp;Shikar And Hazri, The Amateur Cine Society Of India And The Doon School, Rudyard Kipling And Mahatma Gandhi. &Nbsp; 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.




Suburban Sahibs


Book Description

Focuses on three waves of immigration in the post-civil rights era through the stories of three families: the Kotharis, Patels and Sarmas. This book attempts to answer the question of how and why they arrived, and it offers a window into what America has become; a nation of suburbs as well as a nation of immigrants.




Sahibs' India


Book Description

Culled from Raj literature, Sahib's India reveals little-known aspects of their lives and their dealings with their Indian subjects. Drawing from contemporary journals, plays and poems,




Kipling Sahib


Book Description

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865 and spent his early years there, before being sent, aged six, to England, a desperately unhappy experience. Charles Allen's great-grandfather brought the sixteen-year-old Kipling out to Lahore to work on The Civil and Military Gazette with the words 'Kipling will do', and thus set young Rudyard on his literary course. And so it was that at the start of the cold weather of 1882 he stepped ashore at Bombay on 18 October 1882 - 'a prince entering his kingdom'. He stayed for seven years during which he wrote the work that established him as a popular and critical, sometimes controversial, success. Charles Allen has written a brilliant account of those years - of an Indian childhood and coming of age, of abandonment in England, of family and Empire. He traces the Indian experiences of Kipling's parents, Lockwood and Alice and reveals what kind of culture the young writer was born into and then returned to when still a teenager. It is a work of fantastic sympathy for a man - though not blind to Kipling's failings - and the country he loved.




A Sahib's Daughter


Book Description

"A Sahib's Daughter" is set in the waning days of British imperialism in India. The merging of the two social cultures provides fodder for much of the novel's drama and conflict. Love crosses racial boundaries in the lives of three generations of women: grandmother Prava, her daughter, Ramona and granddaughter, Samira. Their fates are forever transformed through their encounters with British tea planters. It becomes evident that tea is not the only seed being planted by the British sahibs, and their exploits with local women result in a new mixed breed of offspring in a unique culture that came to be known as "Anglo-Indian." Englishman Charles arrives in India with a broken heart and seeking adventure in the remote tea plantations of the Dooars. And when dashing young Indian, Ravi explodes into Samira's genteel world on his red motor cycle her life is never quite the same again. Her impulsive reactions lead her down a path of drama and disaster with Irishman Justin. When Justin's efforts at deception are dramatically exposed in the corridors of Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital, Samira is faced with some difficult decisions. Later, in Delhi, tempers explode and promises are broken just days before Radhika's society wedding. During the ensuing pandemonium, Samira's brother, Mark unexpectedly arrives on the scene with a revelation that rocks Ravi's world. In a final twist we learn the true identity of Ramona, a secret her mother will take to her grave.




Servant of Sahibs


Book Description

Description of the various places in Central Asia; an account of the travels of Ghulam Rassul Galwan.




Indian Tales of the Raj


Book Description

As rich and varied as India itself, these accounts bring to the reader the Indian perspective on the British Raj. Included are the memories and experiences of more than fifty Indian men and women who worked under the British, made friends with them, and then fought to throw them out. They describe the role of apprentice under the sahibs, the complex racial barriers that divided the rulers from the ruled, the Western education which eventually encouraged rebellion, and the ways in which liberal British political arguments were turned against the Raj by nationalist campaigns to force the British to quit India.




The End of India


Book Description

‘I thought the nation was coming to an end’ When Khushwant Singh witnessed the violence of Partition nearly seventy years ago, he believed that he had seen the worst that India could do to herself. But after the carnage in Gujarat in 2002, he had reason to feel that the worst, perhaps, was still to come. Analysing the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the burning of Graham Staines and his children, the targeted killings by terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir, Khushwant Singh forces us to confront the absolute corruption of religion that has made us among the most brutal people on earth. He also points out that fundamentalism has less to do with religion than with politics. And communal politics, he reminds us, is only the most visible of the demons we have nurtured and let loose upon ourselves. A brave and passionate book, The End of India is a wake-up call for every citizen concerned about his or her own future, if not the nation’s.




The Buddha and the Sahibs


Book Description

Today there are many Buddhists in the West, but for 2000 years the Buddha's teachings were unknown outside Asia. It was not until the late 18th century, when Sir William Oriental Jones, a British judge in India, broke through the Brahmin's prohibition on learning their sacred language. Sanskrit, that clues about the origins of a religion quite distinct from Hinduism began to be deciphered from inscriptions on pillars and rocks. This study tells the story of the search that followed, as evidence mounted that countries as diverse as Ceylon, Japan and Tibet shared a religion which had its origins in India yet was unknown there. British rule brought to India, Burma and Ceylon a whole band of enthusiastic Orientalist amateurs - soldiers, administrators and adventurers - intent on investigating the subcontinent's lost past. Unwittingly, these men helped lay the foundations for the revival of Buddhism in Asia during the 19th century and its spread to the West in the 20th. Charles Allen's book is a mixture of detective work and story-telling, as this acknowledged master of British Indian history pieces together early Buddhist history to bring a handful of extraordinary characters to life.




Holy Cow


Book Description

In her twenties, journalist Sarah Macdonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the finger. But eleven years later, the prophecy comes true. When the love of Sarah’s life is posted to India, she quits her dream job to move to the most polluted city on earth, New Delhi. For Sarah this seems like the ultimate sacrifice for love, and it almost kills her, literally. Just settled, she falls dangerously ill with double pneumonia, an experience that compels her to face some serious questions about her own fragile mortality and inner spiritual void. “I must find peace in the only place possible in India,” she concludes. “Within.” Thus begins her journey of discovery through India in search of the meaning of life and death. Holy Cow is Macdonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars. From spiritual retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.