Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Aliens under Indian sky, 23 Aug 2006
Pithy though this book is it will keep you glued and captivated. British individuals who were masters or participants in Colonial India talk frankly about what it was really like. Many of the people featured in this book like Deborah Dring, Reginald Savory and Philip Mason (who also introduces the volume) would now be dead. The voices were recorded for radio in the mid 1970s. Now the memoirs resurface like something out of a faraway fairytale.
Charles Allen, now getting on himself was originally put in charge of the recordings for a BBC radio series documenting the period of Colonial India between 1900 and 1948 from then living witnesses to a bygone age by Philip Mason. Thank goodness that Mason had the courage to launch this project which was regarded as somewhat politically incorrect even then. Allen is much suited to the task as the heir to a British family that lived and worked in Colonial India over several generations.
The stories reveal a peculiar breed - the very caricature of the English as they once were putting up an even more formal front than they would have at home as the rulers of India - few in number but ruling by prestige. Every part of the book reveals character, humour or history with priceless aphorisms spoken in true English style:
"You get these burning plains right across India, fifteen hundred miles of them, absolutely flat with rivers wandering through them fed by the snows, and behind them the greatest range of mountains in the world. You gradually go up from tropical ... climbs, through European and Alpine flora until you get right up into the snows. I don't think there is anything in life which is such a relief and such a physical delight as going from the heat of the plains in the hot weather up into the mountains"
This is just the tip of an iceberg of a series of sensational real life recordings, but there is more leaving aside some nice photographs, cartoons and sketches reproduced from period material. There are quotations from books such as by Maud Diver from her "The Englishwoman in India" 1909 and bits from period material:
"It is clearly to be understood that no one except on duty is allowed to accompany him and in no circumstances whatever are any ladies allowed to proceed to the border" (from a travel permit).
Practically every aspect of Indian Colonial life is examined up and down the hierarchy from the Viceroy down to corporals and Anglo Indians of mixed blood - though the book leaves you yearning for more - it is not an exhaustive treatment thankfully. We get a great sense for the climate, the "subjects", the pace of life, flirtation, gardening, travel and the rituals associated with that once prominent institution the Club. We look into the army barracks and the Mess -with some men deprived of women for five to seven years and how they bore it, and into the endless parties at Simla in Summer . There are also accounts of the profligacy of the times such as sport, hunts and shoots and the snobbery and segregation that accompanied Colonial life altering through the decades. However, with their power, the British seemed to have dispensed their responsibilities with aplomb - it was a miracle that they did so for so long.
This past best-seller is a must for those who wish to understand the English and Colonial India - it will deserve repeat readings and sharing with friends. A vital reference - precursor to famous TV dramatisations like "Jewel in the Crown".
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61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A portrait of British India, 29 Jan 2001
By A Customer
This is a book shows the significance of India to the British who lived and grew up there and also its importance to the empire. In this modern age where imperialism is frowned upon,this book gives us a snapshot of a bygone,more innocent age and demonstrates how much India meant to the British who lived there. As well as being very imformative, it is also highly readable. This book is a must for anyone who wishes to understand British-India.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Voices from the past, 3 Mar 2009
This book, based on a series first presented on the BBC, is a wonderful collection of memories and reminiscences from people who lived in India at the time of the British Raj, when India was the Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire.
Although the time and the protagonists are long gone, their voices spring with freshness and immediacy from the pages. Charles Allen who has edited these remarkable and heart-warming stories explains that his oldest contributors were in India long before the First World War; Claude Auchinleck whose father had fought in the Indian Mutiny came out in 1903. The youngest representitive is Spike Milligan, the son of an British Army corporal, who left India in 1927.
The tales we hear are very personal and reflect the everyday lives of many different kinds of people in all walks of life and from all classes and gradually, through these colourful mosaics, we can build up a picture of life under the Raj. There is joy and sadness, comedy and tragedy, a sense of doing one's duty with dignity and devotion. We find out how life was for the children, for the young wives, for the bachelors, for the soldiers and the district commissioners; we learn about the relationships with the servants, life at The Club,the torments of the hot weather, the escape to the hills. One even learns a little Urdu
This is a truly superb book and I would recommend it to everyone. Pour yourself a chota peg and have a good read!
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