Sahib's India Vignettes of the Raj

STEP BACK TO GLIMPSE A BYGONE TIME... Mahlee dhobie cook horsekeeper Each were to the chokee sent Last of all the wretched sweeper- Still the Colonel's liquor went. 'Devlish odd this!' said the Colonel 'What a land to soldier in! Aboo this is most infernal - Who the blazes drinks my gin?' Sahib's India's is a panaromic look at the lives of the British in colonial India. Culled from Raj literature it reveals little-known aspects of their lives and their dealings with their Indian subjects. Drawing from contemporary journals plays and poems the author provides wonderful descriptions of British homes and servants their tastes and fashions cultural idiosyncrasies profligacy sports hunts and shoots giving us with the relaxed familiarity of the after -dinner raconteur a flavour of the period. The book is peppered with a host of characters- astrologers jugglers magicians grass widows the 'fishing fleet' missionaries nautch girls mavericks and eccentrics- who made India their home as the British turned from traders to empire- builders and is interspersed with period photographs paintings and sketches. Thsi is a delightful evocation of a vanished world. About the Author Pran Nevile was born in Lahore and took his postgraduate degree there. After a distinguished career in the Indian Foreign Service and the United Nations he decided to become a freelance writer and specialized in the study of social and cultural history of India. His particular fascination with the visual and performing arts inspired him to spend many years researching in libraries and museums in the UK and USA.