Synopses & Reviews
Born in India in 1937, Michael Foss's childhood was spent between the cold, grey austerity of Britain under threat, and the brightly lit and teeming vitality of wartime India. Here, beautifully evoked, is a childhood spent amongst grudging and unloving English relations; a sufferance of cruelly harsh schooling, a bleak, dank landscape; and a sense of permanent cold and a savage hunger even for dreadful food. All of this was suddenly changed for the sub-continent's jumble of conflicting sights and sounds and smells: the vital, stinking, hot, noisy, crowded streets; the calm, quiet grace of moghul architecture; the ancient Hindu kingdoms reduced to stones amid the roots of trees; the monumental Victorian buildings that echoed British power; the attitudes of the Raj; the self-conscious majesty and pomp. The British, the author notes, lived on but not in India. "Our rules for living were not their rules," he writes in this wry, affectionate reflection on a childhood spent between two continents, two civilizations, two versions of history.
Review
"This extraordinary book is written with genuine wit and imagination - and you will not forget reading it." Michael Holroyd, Daily Telegraph
Synopsis
"I am truly a child of both countries and both cultures." Born to an Indian father and an English mother, Jamila Gavin's childhood was divided between two worlds. Her earliest memories are of India, where she lived in a crumbling palace built for a prince, and learned to steal sugar cane and suck mangoes. But she would spend much of her childhood in England, where she picked blackberries, got chilblains, and learned to recognise doodlebug bombs. And between the two there were unforgettable journeys, by bullock carts and tongas, crowded trains and romantic P&O liners. A touching and very personal recollection, with a backdrop of world-shaking events, from the Blitz of World War II to the struggle for Indian independence and the assassination of Gandhi. Illustrated with the author's own delightful photographs.
About the Author
Jamila Gavin is the author of Coram Boy, The Wheel of Surya, The Eye of the Horse, The Track of the Wind, The Singing Bowls, The Wormholers, and Coming Home.