Paradoxically, this was also the time India was most welcoming to the foreign journalist, particularly from the bbc. Those accustomed to today’s fiercely competitive and cash-rich media may find it odd that bbc commanded such enormous credibility and respect throughout the country. It was, as Mark Tully writes in the foreword to his erstwhile colleague’s book, "a unique period in the history of global media, a period in which a foreign broadcaster became more important than a domestic broadcaster...". Under draconian state control, All India Radio and Doordarshan lacked credibility and people tuned into crackling short-wave stations broadcast from Bush House to gauge if something important was being kept hidden by the government. This was most so in village India where authenticity and rumours blended easily.
Adam Clapham is one of those Englishmen who fell in love with the old India of the Ambassador car and, finally, decided to make it his home. What moved him was not India the emerging economic superpower but an India where life was more settled, albeit less comfortable. Predictably, as befitting all good members of the Oriental Club—where they still serve a Curry of the Day, sometimes cooked in a style reminiscent of the old bnr Hotel in Puri—there are dollops of Raj nostalgia in this collection. The meetings with the last expats in Ooty, the visit to Elveden Hall—once the country estate of the unfortunate Duleep Singh and an account of the deftness with which he negotiated the trick question on the Bengal Club at the Oriental, make for some delightful reading. The crowning glory is, of course, a touching pen portrait of Tully Sahib—perhaps the only post-colonial Englishman to make sense of the infuriating complexities of India.
I was particularly struck by Clapham’s sympathetic account of his second cousin Gordon Bennett’s proselytising work in Medak of the 1920s. Rather than judge Bennett through the prism of the contemporary world, he has accepted his dedicated Christian fanaticism at face value. I didn’t like what I read of Cousin Gordon but it’s amusing to read about someone who thought all non-Christians needed deliverance.
At a time when India is being examined by foreign journalists with the rigour of market analysts, Clapham’s "perspectives", enriched by Mario’s inimitable caricatures, capture the enduring romance of India—and, for that matter, the old Raj. As an old fogey and fellow member of the Oriental Club, I loved the book.
