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I have read several very entertaining novels and biographies of Anglo-Indian life written by foreigners who knew the country well by having spent a part of their lives here or have come across for an extensive stay in order to familiarise themselves with Indian names, religions and customs. Names like Kipling, Louis Bromfield, Paul Scott, M.M. Kaye and Rumer Godden readily come to mind. The other day a friend lent me a book bearing the title, The Faraway Drum, written by an Australian, John Cleary who, according to the blurb, has won several literary awards in his country and has had seven of his novels filmed. The author seems to have obtained his ‘facts’ second or third hand from someone whose own knowledge of the country seems shaky. The locale of the story is Simla from where it shifts to Delhi. The year, 1911. The great event, the Coronation Durbar of George V. It clearly begins by naming the environs of Simla correctly — Narkanda, Theog, Phagu and Mashobra. He also gives a passably accurate description of Viceregal Lodge, which was built in 1888 with Lord Dufferin as its first occupant. Then follow a series of bloomers or fantasies which both amused and annoyed me. Students of Indo-British relations will recall that although Queen Victoria had been proclaimed Empress of India soon after the uprising of 1857, neither she nor her gallivanting son, Edward VII, ever set foot in the country. In the book, the Queen’s grandson, George V, decides to make himself known to the princes and commoners of India by being crowned before them. By convention, so much a part of the British way of life, only the Archbishop of Canterbury can crown the monarch and so, before George V stepped out of the royal tent to mount the podium, he placed the crown on his head with his own hands. The second, and more important, purpose of the King’s visit was to make an announcement to his loyal subjects that the capital of India was to be moved from Calcutta to Delhi. And now for the meat of the story. A plot had been hatched for a second "War of Independence" to be triggered by assassinating the King Emperor on the day of his Coronation. The brain behind the scheme was the Gaekwad of Baroda who, while maintaining a semblance of loyalty, entrusted the task to a few minor princelings of the Punjab hill states. The leader in this region was the beautiful and promiscuous Mala Rani of Sarog, who had been put on her late father’s ‘gaddi’, in preference to her brother, Mahendra, who the British considered to be of unsound mind or, at least, unreliable. It is, however, revealed earlier in the story that among the Rani’s many friends were the successive British residents of the Indian Political Service, including the hero of the tale, Major Clive Farnol, as well as his Chief in Delhi, Colonel Lathrop. The Rani’s fellow-conspirators are her brother, Prince Mahendra, who has sufficient cause to hate the British Raj, the public-school and highly-educated Nawab of Kalanpur, a member of the MCC with six wives, instead of the permitted four and, guess what, his cousin Sankar, Raja of Pandar. The author was obviously misinformed about Indian names and communal divides. There are characters in the story who, sounding quite authentic, provide some comic relief. There is the ageing German Consul-General, pro-British and anti-Kaiser, the Baron Kurt von Albern, who spends most of the day polishing his monocle, dreaming of his past loves and yearning to return to his estates in Thuringia. And there is the inevitable heroine, a slim, winsome American newspaperwoman, Bridie O’ Brady who, as the story proceeds, falls deeper and deeper in love with the gallant Major Farnol. Through his spies, Farnol had got wind of the assassination plot though, till nearly the end, he is unaware that his former mistress, her brother (educated at the Bishop Cotton School, Simla) and his friend Bertie are involved in it. The coronation is only a week away and he must warn his chief. He is prevented from doing so because the telegraph lines to Delhi have been cut. A special VIP train is to leave for Kalka carrying the prince, the Rani, Lady Westbrook and Bridie O’Brady. Farnol decides to travel in it together with his shadow Karim Singh. And here, the author’s fancy borders on the ludicrous. The tiny coaches and open wagons of the Kalka-Simla Light Railway are to carry not only the invitees, including all six wives of the Nawab, but also two state elephants, half-a-dozen Arab steeds and two four-wheelers. Somewhere near Solan the train’s descent comes to an abrupt halt. A monstrous landslide had been ‘arranged’ by the conspirators who have got to know that Farnol has discovered the plot, but not their names. They must be eliminated or stopped from reaching Kalka from where he can signal his chief. The passengers and animals now walk down to the cart road to continue their journey in the state carriages and on horses. On the great day, the Rani is to stick her family’s jewels-encrusted dagger into the royal breast as she goes up to pay obeisance to their Majesties. But fate deprives her of the honour. Early in the morning her brother sees a young subaltern of the Bengal Lancers leave her tent. Insane with shame and anger, he goes in and strangles her to death. It is then decided, much against his will, that he should take over his dead sister’s role. By this time Farnol and Lathrop have guessed the identities of the would-be killers. As Mahendra stands, way down the princely line, they march up to him and ask him to step out of it. He draws his dagger and plunges it into Farnol’s ribs without killing him, of course! Four British soldiers grab the prince and walk off with him, or rather with his corpse, because he has stuck the dagger into his own heart. Not one of the several thousands of spectators has any inkling of what has happened because of the efficient handling of the situation by the British officers. The Coronation ceremony proceeds as planned, except that the Gaekwad insults the King Emperor by turning up unjewelled. The story, you may be sure, ends happily though rather tamely. Clive Furnol and Bridie O’Brady get married and spend the next three years in the Simla hills where Farnol acts as Regent for the minor prince of Sarog, a distant cousin of the Rani. Comes the 1914-18 war, and Farnol rejoins his regiment. He is wounded in France and he loses his faithful Karim Singh to a German bullet. After the War he resigns and accompanies his wife to America where her rich father is an active political campaigner for the Democrats. And the tame ending? Farnol catches a chill at the inauguration ceremony of J.F. Kennedy in 1961 and dies two days later. |
