Reminiscences of the Raj

In her remarkable book — Mehtars and Marigolds,Barbara Dinner,traces several such issues. Dinner who is close to 70 now tells the story of four generations of her family in British India. In this she covers the period from 1874,the time when British empire in India was at its peak to the anxious times in 1940s,when the growing momentum of Indian Independence movement had made the once mighty British empire look increasingly wobbly.

The tale starts with the marriage of John Perren and Susannah Barton. Dinner,actually is the great grand-daughter of Perren. After the marriage in England,the young couple shifts to the Shimla,where John starts a small business. Within a year,the John and Susannah had a child (Dinner’s grandfather). Unlike his parents,who still had strong emotional connections with England,the newborn was equally at home with both cultures. Having been born in India, he went on to become a top government official. His family and daughter named Clare (Barabara’s mother), therefore were a part of British elite. As she grew up in India,the discerning Clare,witnessed the two sides of the colonial rule. On one hand was the splendour and glory of British rule,the victory of Allies forces in World War-1. On the other were the deprived and exploited locals. Torn apart by their own differences exacerbated by British policies,the Indians had nevertheless started to show signs of awakening under a forceful independence campaign.

Clare went on to marry Hector Perks,a cavalryman. The couple had five children and the big family kept on moving from one destination to another. This allowed the newborns to observe different parts of this country. Dinner,who was born in 1940,expresses the puzzlement of herself and her siblings. They were told by their parents that their home country was England. But they had never been to England. They had lived all their lives in India. But even in India,life was dynamic. After living in the heat,dust and history of Agra,the youngsters suddenly found themselves shifted to Shillong- where the climate and ambience was akin to the description of England in the stories and anecdotes and narrated to them. The struggle for identities is further accentuated by the start of World War II. Their father,a senior army officer,gets posted to Burma,where Japanese forces were wrecking havoc. Back home in India,the Independence movement was gaining strength. The fear and respect which British had in the eyes of Indians was being replaced by suspicion and anger.

All this makes Hector take the difficult decision to return to England. The family returned ‘home’ in 1948. In a brilliant remark,young Barbara remarks,“It is funny to say I returned home because I had never been to England before.”

The concluding years of a colonial rule in a country has captured the imagination of several authors worldwide.

But Dinner’s work is different in several aspects. First is the sheer longevity — the books traverses a period of 74 years. To put things in perspective,one can say that the book started several years before Jawahar Lal Nehru was born,and continues till the time he became country’s first Prime Minister. Another thing to Dinner’s credit is her meticulous research. The book has been written after 30 years of thorough research during which Dinner made several visits to India. She gleaned upon every information,but has been careful to not to make the book a tedious history reading.

Another aspect which stands out is author’s respect to India and its way of India. In the last chapter of the book the author describes the struggle of her family on their return to England. Having been used to a royal lifestyle in India,the family grapples to come to terms with their status as ordinary citizens in a war-torn England. In her small preface,Dinner describes her life in India as ‘’golden and exotic”and terms her and her family’s stay in India as a “special privilege”. “The years I describe in this book were a rich and leisurely era in which life was lived,particularly by well-to-do,with a sense of spaciousness and a carefree spirit. It was a time never to be repeated.”

The 370 page book has been published Perkerren Publishing House,UK. It is available at leading book stores and Amazon.com. Price: Rs 1025.