Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal

Well, I will start by saying, this review is going to be slightly briefer than the one I just wrote, and Goodreads failed to save - Thanks for that Goodreads!

This book is the diarised recordings of the authors five months in the 1920s spent as the private secretary of the Maharajah of Chhatrapur. The author goes some way to disguising the actual location, and goes so far as to suggest this is a work of fiction: “This journal then, which developed day by day out of almost complete ignorance, and for whose accuracy in fact, since I was depending solely upon my memory I cannot therefore vouch.” But few readers would be taken in.

Another point to note, is that this second edition has had some of more risqué bits added back in: from the preface “When this journal was first offered for publication it was thought necessary to make a number of omissions. Nearly twenty years have passed since then, and the State of Chhokrapur, if indeed it ever existed, has dissolved away in the new map of India.”

Anyway, Ackerley shows himself as an excellent observer of human nature. This is a largely a work of observation - of characters, and of their interaction, and Ackerley proves an able writer of anecdotes.

Presented in diary style, he works his way through his five months outlining may of the more amusing interactions and conversations with his cast of characters. The Maharajah of course, who provides constant amusement is his seeking of explanations for British thinking. “He wanted someone to love him - His highness, I mean. He alleged other reasons, of course - an English private secretary, a tutor for his son... He wanted a friend. He wanted understanding and sympathy and philosophic comfort, and he sent to England for them.”.

The other English, or Anglo-English are ridiculed almost openly for their superiority, which the author clearly doesn't share:
P78/79
‘Do you like India?' Mrs. Bristow asked me.‘Oh, yes. I think it's marvellous.”‘And what do you think of the people?'‘I like them very much, and think them most interesting.'‘Oo, aren't you a fibber! What was it you said the other day about “awful Anglo-Indian chatter”?'‘But I thought you were speaking of the Indians just now, not the Anglo-Indians.'‘The Indians! I never think of them.'‘Well, you said “the people,” you know.'‘I meant us people, stupid!'‘I see. Well now, let's start again.'

and, P22
“Talking of snakes, Mrs. Montgomery told me that once she nearly stood upon a krait - one of the most venomous snakes in India. She has been very ill at the time, suffering from acute facial neuralgia, ‘so that I didn't care if I trod on fifty kraits. I was quite stupid with pain, and was going back in the evening to my bungalow, preceded by a servant who was carrying a lamp. Suddenly he stopped and said “Krait, Mem-sahib!” - but I was far too ill to notice what he was saying, and went straight on, and the krait was lying right in the middle of the path! The servant did a thing absolutely without precedent in India - he touched me! - he put hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. My shoe came off and I stopped. Of course if he hadn't done that I should have undoubtedly have been killed; but I didn't like it all the same same, and got rid of him soon after.”

There are so many great quotes for Ackerley's interactions with Abdul, his Hindi tutor, the only man who seems to be able to get on the wrong side of Ackerley. The conversations between the two of them are comedy gold, and worth reading the book for. (“He really is the most tiresome person I have ever met.”)

As good as he is at capturing the moment in his writing, the book is unusual in the very repetitive suggestions of homosexuality. The author, who was openly gay, must have been quite a rarity at the time, and I suspect that the text he added back in to this book for the second edition had to do with this overt homosexual comment and suggestion - especially related to his time with Narayan, the guest house clerk and his friend Sharma, a lower caste valet. It is not reading too much into things to suggest the Maharajah was also less than interested in his own wife.

But, to some more of the memorable quotes:

P255 - The Maharaja to Ackerley:
‘What must I say to God when I meet Him? What shall I say to Him for my sins?'‘I shouldn't mention the word,' I said. ‘He'll be the best judge of your life. If you've got to say anything I should say, “You sent us forth into the world incomplete and therefore weak. With my own life, in these circumstances, and according to my own nature, I did what I could to secure happiness. But I did not even know what happiness was, or where to look for it, and it was whilst I was in search of it that I dare say I got a little muddled.”'

P22
In the bazaar today I noticed a shopkeeper sitting cross-legged on the platform of his shop making up his ledger. A common sight - but there was something wrong, I could not at first see what. Then I understood: what was his heavy ledger resting on? It was lying open before him, on his stomach, but unsupported by his free hand, not resting against his knees. What on earth was propping it up?The problem teased my mind so much that I had to retrace my steps for another look. There he was, comfortably scribbling away in the large ledger, which was standing up, apparently unsupported, in his lap. Then, as I stared, he closed it, and got to his feet - and the mystery was explained. He had elephantiasis of the scrotum, and had been utilising this huge football of tissue as a book-rest.

So for me this is a book that deserves to be kept in print. It is very much a book of it's time - almost a hundred years ago now, and is unusual in its presentation, but very funny, and very readable.

For the painful-to-watch worming of Abdul, to the clever Dewan, and equally clever Babaji Rao, this is a book worth seeking out, despite being somewhat hard to find.

Four and half stars from me, rounded up.