I recently read two books that take place in India. One was a novel, The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese, which our island book group read. The other one was a biography, Rumer Godden: a storyteller’s life, by Anne Chisholm. Verghese’s novel is mostly about Indian characters, but their lives are intertwined with British (Scottish) characters, including a woman who grew up in India. To her, India was home. Author Rumer Godden also grew up in India, and spent much of her early adult life there, including in Kashmir, a place I have always been interested in visiting, especially if it includes staying on a houseboat. Several of Godden’s books take place in India, including Black Narcissus, which takes place in the Himalayan foothills.
This led me to think about novels about the British in India. The Guardian has a great list of 10 books that take place in India, including books by Rudyard Kipling, E.M. Forster, and Paul Scott. Emily Eden’s Up the country looks especially appealing: “If Jane Austen had gone to India, these are the letters home she might have written.”
Goodreads has the term, “British Raj,” to describe this period of history, and created a list of books to read. Wikipedia also has a list. The British Raj was the period of British Parliament rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947, for around 89 years of British occupation.
One of my favorite children’s books is “A little princess,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Sara Crewe, the main character, is the daughter of an officer in the British Army, stationed in India. In another book by Burnett, The Secret Garden, the central character Mary Lennox was also born in India. Both children end up in England in somewhat miserable circumstances, but find their way into a better life.
In the early 1990s I had the opportunity to visit a friend who was living and working in India. While India was never on my bucket list of places to visit, I was thrilled to spend a few days in beautiful Simla (Shimla) in the Himalayan foothills. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of British India. We met an older British woman, named Pat, who had grown up in India, and it was home to her.
Regardless of the lasting impact of the British Raj on India, the literature to come out of it is worth further investigation, and adding to my growing list of books to read.