Sahibs' India

<p>STEP BACK TO GLIMPSE<br> A BYGONE TIME...</p><p> Mahlee dhobie cook horsekeeper <br> Each were to the chokee sent <br> Last of all the wretched sweeper- <br> Still the Colonel's liquor went.</p><p> 'Devlish odd this!' said the Colonel<br> 'What a land to soldier in!<br> Aboo this is most infernal -<br> Who the blazes drinks my gin?'</p><p> 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.</p>