Memsahibs Writings

The white women of colonial India wrote extensively during their years of residence in India. This anthology brings together a fascinating collection of such European women's narratives. Mapped along the historical shifts that took place over the hundred-year period, the book captures the many facets and nuances of gender relations across racial divide. Imaginatively organised around key sites of contact, the narratives are arranged in fourteen thematic clusters. This book will appeal to readers interested in gender and colonialism and the writings of the Raj.

For young Englishwomen stepping off the steamer, the sights and sounds of humid colonial India were like nothing they’d ever experienced. For many, this was the ultimate destination to find a perfect civil servant husband. For still more, however, India offered a chance to fling off the shackles of Victorian social mores. The word ‘memsahib’ conjures up visions of silly aristocrats, well-staffed bungalows and languorous days at the club. Yet these women had sought out the uncertainties of life in Britain’s largest, busiest colony. Memsahibs introduces readers to the likes of Flora Annie Steel, Fanny Parks and Emily Eden, accompanying their husbands on expeditions, travelling solo across dangerous terrain, engaging with political questions, and recording their experiences. Yet the Raj was not all adventure. There was disease, and great risk to young women travelling alone; for colonial wives in far-flung outposts, there was little access to ‘society’. Cut off from modernity and the Western world, many women suffered terrible trauma and depression. From the hill-stations to the capital, this is a sweeping, vividly written anthology of colonial women’s lives across British India. Their honesty and bravery, in their actions and their writings, shine fresh light on this historical world.

This exciting anthology provides the best of travel writing by the memsahibs of the Raj who were anxious to see `the real India'. The book salvages long-forgotten writings by Englishwomen travelling in India. These historically valuable writings are perceptive and amusing, and have long been out of print. It also contains biographical notes on the travellers.

Thousands of British women lived in India during Victorian times. They first went out as wives, mothers, sisters; others followed as teachers, doctors, missionaries. What they did and how they responded to their strange environment were seldom thought worthy of record, and writers have handed down to us a fictional image of the typical 'memsahib' as a frivolous, snobbish and selfish creature flitting from bridge to tennis parties 'in the hills'. For the most part, these clichés bear little resemblance to the truth; many women loyally and stoically accepted their share of the responsibility with endurance, courage and resilience. This story is developed around a number of women who wrote in an entertaining and intelligent fashion about their Indian experiences, starting with the arrival on the scene of one of the wittiest and cleverest of them all - Emily Eden, sister of Lord Auckland who was Governor-General from 1836 to 1842. It ends with Maud Diver, who maintained that the random assertion made by Kipling about the 'lower tone of social morality' in India was unjust and untrue. The dramatis personae of the book include Vicereines, wives of Civil Servants and missionaries struggling to break down the subservience of women throughout the vast sub-continent. Through women's eyes we witness the principal historic events at the time - the Afghan conflicts, the Mutiny - as well as the daily routines in very different cantonments and some of the British personalities who made their mark on nineteenth-century India - Honoria Lawrence, Flora Steel, Lady Sale. In this vivid account, Pat Barr evokes the sights and smells of Victorian India, its teeming masses, its problems so impossible, it seemed, for Englishwomen to solve.

Indian Memsahib: The untold story of a bureaucrat's wife is an unconventional look into the world of Indian bureaucracy and its fascinating order. The book is a subtle attempt at showing how bureaucracy works in certain ways and brings out the conflict between popularity and credibility. Indian Memsahib traces Sunaina's journey from being an ambitious girl who wants to live life on her own terms to an 'outsider' bahu in a traditional family setup fighting her lone battle to the trials and tribulations of becoming the wife of Raghu, an upright and honest IAS officer.

Drawing Upon A Wide Range And Variety Of Literary And Non-Literary Sources Of Nineteenth Century British India, Woman And Empire Examines Perceptions Of Gender Over The 1858 1900 Period. The Book Focuses On Representations Of White And Indian Women, In Addition To Women Of Mixed Races, In Fiction As Well As In Colonial Newspapers And Journals.

The emergent culture of crime writings in late 19th century colonial Bengal (India) is an interesting testimony to how literature is shaped by various material forces including the market. This book deals with true crime writings of the late 1800s published by ‘lowbrow publishing houses’ — infamous for publishing ‘sensational’ and the ‘vulgar’ literature — which had an avid bhadralok (genteel) readership. The volume focuses on select translations of true crime writings by Bakaullah and Priyanath Mukhopadhyay who worked as darogas (Detective Inspectors) in the police department in mid-late nineteenth century colonised Bengal. These published accounts of cases investigated by them are among the very first manifestations of the crime genre in India. The writings reflect their understandings of criminality and guilt, as well as negotiations with colonial law and policing. Further, through a selection of cases in which women make an appearance either as victims or offenders, (or sometimes as both,) this book sheds light on the hidden gendered experiences of the time, often missing in mainstream Bangla literature. Combining a love for suspense with critical readings of a cultural phenomenon, this book will be of much interest to scholars and researchers of comparative literature, translation studies, gender studies, literary theory, cultural studies, modern history, and lovers of crime fiction from all disciplines.