My Reading Obsession

 

I have a secret reading obsession:  I’m reading about the British Raj. I’m a little embarrassed to admit my fascination with British colonialism, but rest assured, I’m highly suspect of the white men who assumed they were inherently better at running a country than its native people. Still, I’m hooked on the details of the British in around India. I want to learn about the 19th century, and travel writing and Kipling, and the history of the East Indian Company. I want to know about the Mutiny of 1857. (Did you know this wasn’t spurred on by nationalism, but by a rumor that Hindu sepoys were given cow grease for their rifles?) I’m fascinated by life at stations in places like Barrackpore in Bengal, and of the train rides to summer in Shimla. I want to know about the servants and the clubs and what was eaten, and what one packed for a life in India, and how one found a spouse. I can’t help keeping a list of words of the era that fascinate me: ayah, bungalow, cantonment, maidan, mahout, punkahs, purdah, sahib, sepoy, subaltern, zennana. (I also can’t help my urge to alphabetize these words.) 

 

My fascination with the Raj mainly centers on women’s lives. I want to know what those Victorian ladies did all day when they weren’t at the club, and how they ran their households, what they read, and what they packed for life in India. One of my favourite books on the topic is Margaret MacMillan’s Women of the Raj. I’m also a fan of Elizabeth Buettner’s Imperial Families and Anne de Courcy's The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj.  

 

Currently I’m reading Enid Saunders Candlin’s  A Travelllor’s Tale. Although not set in the Victorian era, Candlin provides a wealth of information on India. Candlin found herself on the sub-continent after the fall of Hong Kong during World War Two. Her husband was a weapon’s inspector first near Calcutta and then later near Bombay. Part of the book is devoted to some of the exotic trips they took to Sikkhim and Darjeeling and the caves of Abernath. Even more interesting to me are the details of her domestic servants and their various houses and settings, against the backdrop of the war. I’ve been taking detailed notes on the houses she lived in as well as the numerous rail journeys she took. The trains don’t sound that different from when I visited in 1998.

 

Next on my reading list, I’m continuing my interest in the Victorian period with a few books on travelling. What’s on my book shelf?  Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Travellers by Dea Birkett and Victorian Scientific Travellers by Peter Raby.