Chapter 1 - Nat.
Tamil Nadu, India, 1947.
Paul was four when the sahib took him away from the place with all the children. He would never forget that day. He awoke to the banging on a big brass plate: that was Sister Maria, waking the children, while the crows outside cawed in great excitement as if they knew the day was special, flying off in a turbulence of flapping, clapping wings. He kneeled on his mat for his prayer and then, stretching and yawning, he got up and went outside for a pee-pee...
. After lunch the children lay down on their mats to sleep. The sun was high in the sky by now and the ground so hot it burnt your soles, but the verandah was shaded by a palm-leaf roof and though the breeze blowing through was also hot it made you nice and sleepy.
Paul was just dozing off when he heard the throbbing of the motorbike as it turned into the courtyard with a splatter of gravel. He turned his face towards the sound and opened his eyes a slit. He saw at once the rider was a sahib, even though he wore a white lungi and a white shirt like any other man, because though his face was brown like other people's it was a golden-reddish kind of brown, and his hair was also golden-brown, not black.
Mother Immaculata bustled out towards the man, the ring of fat between her sari-blouse and skirt wobbling as she ran. Paul knew that sahibs shook hands when they met each other, but this sahib made a pranam to Mother Immaculata, laying the palms of his hands together like they did when they were praying. But Mother Immaculata didn't like that. She stretched out her hand and the man shook it. Paul watched carefully, because this was very unusual and very interesting. What was the man doing here? Sometimes - not very often - the children had visitors, men and women came - Paul knew they were aunts and uncles of the children but he himself had no aunts and uncles - but never sahibs. Had the man come to choose a child?

Paul felt his heart beat faster. It hardly ever happened, that a child was chosen, and this time it couldn't be, because then a lady would be with the sahib – or could it?
... oh dear Baby Jesus, please let the sahib choose me! Oh, please let him choose me, dear Baby Jesus! said Paul in his mind, and then he fell asleep. Baby Jesus had not answered his prayers the last time, and he wouldn't this time either.
He woke up because someone was shaking his shoulders and calling Paul! Paul! Paul rubbed his eyes and looked up, and it was Teacher, and she was smiling. Behind her stood the big sahib and Mother Immaculata, and they were talking together and the big man was watching him, Paul. Now Mother Immaculata was stepping forward and holding out her hand to him, and when Paul didn't react right away she flapped her fingers upwards impatiently and said, "come, come, Paul, get up, get up!" So Paul scrambled to his feet. And stood there gazing up at the sahib towering over him, who had kind dark grey-blue eyes and a huge hand which he now placed on Paul's head; it felt like a nice cool hat, a cool white hat like the sahibs in the pictures wore, but this sahib was hatless, as if he didn't mind the sun...
Please please Baby Jesus thumped his heart and now the sahib was tugging gently at him, leading him down the verandah between the bodies of the sleeping children, to Mother Immaculata's office. Paul took hold of the sahib's forefinger and clutched it with all his might, so the sahib wouldn't leave him behind. They entered the office, and Mother Immaculata clapped her hands and when Sister Maria bustled up told her to bring two cups of tea. The sahib sat at Mother Immaculata's desk, reading some papers, and Paul's heart thumped louder than ever because it seemed the sahib had forgotten all about him. But then the sahib raised his right hand and looked at Paul and chuckled, because Paul was still gripping his finger with all the power of his heart.
"I'll just have to sign with my left hand," said the sahib, still smiling, and then he wrote with his other hand on the papers, and Mother Immaculata put some of the papers in a big cardboard folder and the sahib clumsily folded one other paper with his left hand and slipped it into his shirt pocket, and now he was leading Paul into the sunny courtyard, towards the motorcycle.
"Have you ever been on a motorbike before?" he asked Paul, who shook his head. "Well, you'll have to let go of my finger so you can climb on," said the sahib, peeling Paul's fingers away one by one and laughing. "You can hold on to my wrists when we go... look, you sit in front, just slide forward so there's room for me behind you."
The sahib pushed the motorcycle off its stand.
"Have you ever been to Madras, Paul?" he asked, in Tamil this time, while he untied a corner of his lungi in which he'd wrapped a key.
"Ille, sahib, sah," said Paul.
"Well, then, off we go!" said the sahib, in English, and he tied the hem of his lungi up above his knees and swung one leg over the motorcycle, the leg which ended in a foot made of wood, but Paul only saw the wooden foot later, after they got to Madras and the sahib took off the grey sock.
The sahib leaned forward. "Listen," he said, " I don't like to be called sir. From now on you can call me Daddy. And I shall call you Nataraj. Nat." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Sharon Maas was born in Guyana, educated in England, lived in India, and now lives in Germany. She is married with two children.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A magical story of forbidden love, a 1990s Far Pavilions, the debut of a major storyteller. Of Marriageable Age follows three people across three decades and three continents, in a story of intertwined dramas and mysterious legacies, set against the traditional customs of a country. Savitri, intuitive and charming, is brought up among the servants of a pre-war English household in India. Both her own and the English family are torn apart by the racial upheavals, and by Savitri's love for the son of the house. Nataraj, raised as the son of an idealistic country doctor, finds life in London heady and mind-spinning, with girls and money easily available, so drops out of both his family circle and his medical studies until a chance meeting brings him unbelievable news of his parentage. Sarojini, tempestuous and outspoken, is brought up in Guyana, part of a group of rich Indian families who settled there, and finds herself in rebellion against her strict parents and the regime. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.