Sahibs Who Loved India

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‘Thus we both were tied to India with every possible bond of memory and affection, which clearly played an important part in our lives…as the last Viceroy and indeed when I stayed on as the first Governor-General of the independent country of India.’—Lord Mountbatten From Lord Mountbatten to Peggy Holroyde to Maurice and Taya Zinkin, Britishers who lived and worked in India reminisce about topics and points of interest as varied as the Indian Civil Service and the Roshanara Club, shikar and hazri, the Amateur Cine Society of India and the Doon School, Rudyard Kipling and Mahatma Gandhi. Selected from a series of articles commissioned by Khushwant Singh when he was the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India these delightfully individualistic and refreshingly candid writings reveal a fascinating array of British attitudes, experiences, observations, fond memories, the occasional short-lived grouses and, above all, a deep and abiding affection and respect for India.

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Khushwant Singh is India’s best-known writer and columnist. He has been founder-editor of Yojana, and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, the National Herald and the Hindustan Times. He is the author of classics such as Train to Pakistan, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Delhi, The Company of Women and Burial at Sea. His non-fiction includes the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs; a number of translations and works on Sikh religion and culture, Delhi, nature, current affairs and Urdu poetry. His autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, was published by Penguin Books in 2002. Absolute Khushwant: The Low-Down on Life, Death and Most Things In-Between was published in 2010. Khushwant Singh was a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974, but returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian army. In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.