"A fascinating glimpse into wartime India and the early days of the fight for Independence."
This is another highly readable and engaging slice of historical storytelling from an author who is becoming well known for books which, by revealing little known aspects, can help us all to decolonise our understanding of history. I certainly learnt more about life in India in WW2, as we accompanied 12-year-old Anglo Indian Hassan on his journey from Coventry to Calcutta in 1943.
His parents have decided to send him there to stay with his grandfather after their home was destroyed in the Blitz. We learn about his travel with an Ayah escort and his first encounter with the Whites only injustice in India, which shocked and enraged him.
He has heard his parents talk of Ghandi and the campaign to free India and his white liberal grandfather is certainly not typically representative of the British Raj, having welcomed the marriage of his daughter to an Indian Muslim and has actually lived longer in his beloved India than in England.
On arrival Hassan meets Jaya, also living an equally privileged life as a very rich Bengali, but with grandparents who are firmly in support of the British Raj which had conferred a knighthood on her grandfather. Jaya is rebelling and is a supporter of the Bharot Charo – Leave India movement. She starts to show Hassan the realities of life in India including the results of the appalling manmade Bengali Famine (which in an afterword the author tells us killed over three million). Yet both children realise that the world faces a more current threat, and that supporting Indian independence does not mean they do not want to do all they can to defeat the Nazis and they set out to help his grandfather’s plot to destroy a Nazi spyship (also based upon a real event).
There are some nail-biting, page turning moments in this dangerous escapade. Jaya is a wonderfully intelligent, resilient and determined character and she helps Hassan come to terms with the loss and grief he has carried with him from Coventry. Although the reader may well have suspected that there is something suspicious about the appearances of his little sister Hanna, Hassan has never acknowledged her death. The support of Jaya and his grandfather allows him to finally let her go and this is a poignant and hopeful end to the story.
A valuable and relatively short read that packs quite a punch!
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