Missionaries and Indians

<p>This book is a fictionalized account of a teenage boy growing up in a community of Lutheran missionaries in India. It attempts to honestly portray his experiences there steering a course between either eulogizing or condemning the missionary endeavour. Indian and missionary characters weather a cyclone and floods try to make the grade as a missionary send out mixed messages in sermons have their ups and downs on a river trip on a houseboat are taken to court get caught up in a violent political protest suffer through a little child’s illness kill a sacred monkey become a fantasy spy take positions on sex hunt a tiger and come together for a topsy-turvy retreat at the beach.<br />The stories told in the book touch on issues of perennial interest: the collision and integration of different worlds and cultures; interpersonal relationships among and between missionaries and Indians between children and their parents and between servants and masters; evolution and change; inclusion versus exclusion; religious beliefs; human-environment relationships; sex education; the real and the fake; fantasy versus reality; and taking risks.</p>