Give my love to Simla
Reviewed by Raaja Bhasin

The Mysterious Mr. Jacob
by John Zubrzycki.
Vintage Books / Random House. Rs 399

John Zubrzycki has reconstructed the myth of the enigmatic Mr Jacob of Simla

It was some three years back that a friend called to say that an Australian journalist friend of his would be visiting Shimla and could I spend some time with him? Then, I had no idea who John Zubrzycki was. It was only later that I learnt that he had had a long connection with India as a one-time student of Hindi, diplomat, consultant, foreign correspondent and was an award-winning journalist. Zubrzycki was in Shimla to research a book on one of the most enigmatic characters of British India, ‘Jacob of Simla’.

It had been remarked that when the story of Jacob was told, it would surpass fiction. The Mysterious Mr. Jacob is the painstakingly constructed story of the man after whom the largest diamond on the Indian Subcontinent, ‘The Jacob’ is still named. Here was a man who threw smoke screens all around him as he went, his life was as large as imagination could take it and in the course of a conversation, if he could add a few steps along his ladder, he would. The end result was that no one knew who the mysterious Mr. Jacob really was; everyone saw him in bits and pieces.

Rudyard Kipling modelled the remarkable Lurgan Sahib of Kim after him; F. Marion Crawford wrote the bestselling Mr. Issacs based on him and newspaper correspondents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century jostled and shoved to be able to write about him. Jacob was a friend of viceroys and princes; his hospitality was lavish. Among the many things said about him was that he knew the innermost secrets of the British Empire and of the most influential princely rulers of India – and should he ever decide to open his mouth or make public the supposed diary he kept, it would be nothing short of a cataclysm.

He had done well for a boy who had arrived penniless on the docks of Mumbai unable to speak English or any Indian language. In 1921, he also died penniless in the city where he had first landed. The years in between were packed with event. He was said to have the power to turn invisible, he was rumoured to be rich beyond the dreams of Aladdin. Jacob became the leading dealer of antiquities and gemstones in India and it was the sale of the ill-fated diamond to the fabulously wealthy Nizam of Hyderabad, Mahboob Ali Khan that brought about his downfall. His house in Shimla, ‘Belevdere’ is gone; his grave in Mumbai is gone. The diamond is now the property of the Government and is housed in Hyderabad. The enigmatic man’s last words to Alice Dracott who called on him in Mumbai were, "Give my love to Simla."

In this immensely readable and thoroughly researched book, John Zubrzycki has written what many have planned to do for almost a century. The story of Mr. Jacob who found fame, social standing and wealth only to have it vanish in moments has been told.

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