The £1.3-million story begins here

‘‘But Aunty Henny couldn’t bring herself to call us nephews. She always said, ‘Shanti, your relations are here’,’’ laughs the 80-year-old Seth. ‘‘She wasn’t used to grown-up nephews.’’

Premnath, however, has little idea of the shape the book will eventually take as ‘‘Vikram has a tendency never ever to show the draft of his book to anybody.’’

He says: ‘‘He has not taken any advice from us. He has, however, had this in mind for a long time, about six or eight years. His granduncle (Shanti) took care of him when Vikram went to London as a schoolboy of 17.’’

Though Vikram had been thinking about the book for a long time, he began working on it after Premnath found a box in Shanti’s attic. ‘‘It was Aunty Henny’s box, in which she had kept certain letters from her boyfriends and other things. Therefore, instead of one man’s book, it became two lives. I gave the box to Vikram. That was my only contribution,’’ says Premnath.

Vikram taught himself to read the old German script in which some letters were written and went to Germany, Israel and Italy, to do research for the book.

The protagonist of Two Lives, Shanti, was born in 1908 and lived in India till the age of 23, before he left for Germany to study medicine (because it was cheap). In Berlin, he became a lodger in a Jewish widow’s flat.

Henny was her daughter and her first reaction was: ‘‘Don’t take the blackie!’’ When Shanti graduated five years later, he realised there was no work for him in Germany and moved to Britain.

Meanwhile, Henny, her mother and her sister were facing the build-up of anti-Jew feelings in Germany. One month before World War II broke out, Henny escaped to England by sea. Shanti was the only person she knew there. He then enlisted in the British Army Dental Corps and was posted to Sudan, Egypt and Italy. In 1944 in Italy, a shell blew off his right arm and he was shipped back. Henny visited him in the hospital where he was fitted with an artificial arm.

In 1946, Henny learnt that her mother and sister had been moved to various concentration camps, and they were both dead. Shanti and Henny were often called over by their friends as a couple. But he didn’t propose to her until he felt he was financially self-sufficient. They got married in 1951. Both were 43 years old then. ‘‘In fact,’’ says Premnath, ‘‘uncle and aunty got married after Leila and I got married.’’

Shanti and Henny didn’t have any children. ‘‘They were very anxious to adopt Shantum (Vikram’s younger brother). Aunty Henny for her part had taken to Vikram. For her, he could do no wrong,’’ recalls Premnath.

Shanti came back to India twice — in 1937 and 1957. But Henny never did. ‘‘For her, India was an unhygienic place,’’ says Premnath.

‘‘She was very affectionate, and a German as far as timing and cleanliness was concerned. You dared not be late for dinner. Yet the house was very Indian because of Uncle Shanti. He would force you to eat because he felt you had come after a long time,’’ he says.

Henny died in 1989 and Shanti, nine years later. The boy who went to stay with them when he was 17 will now bring back their personal history — and that of the world which was part of it.