The Raj: A Time Remembered, Recollections of Life in the Indian Civil Service

Year 2000

ISBN No. 9781858217567

No.of pages 0

Subject Knowledge and Society, Social Science

Reviews 0

The book opens in 1917, with Donald's diary of his vayage to India on the SS Sarbina, a great adventure for the 23-year-old and his companions, involving submarine attacks and air raids, ragtime concerts on board ship and visits to Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said and Aden. The second part of the book, written in retirement, remembers some of the people, places and events of his long service in India. We follow him through his earliest impressions of the subcontinent; through a year spent in the Army in the North camp; and through his responsibility as a Settlement Officer for important - and not people. Knowledgable and evocative descriptions of the country and his experiences there are complemented by many amusing anecdotes about the people he met, both British and Indian. This is a fascinating and vibrant account of the life of a man who regarded himself not as an administrator for the British, but as a servant of the people of Bengal.