[ilds] An Indian View of an Indian View: Durrell's India

[G. R. Taneja]

I had assumed that I was not a subscriber to the List any more as I have
received no mail for a long time. But my attempt to subscribe has elicited the
reply that I am already subscribed to it. So it must be that I have foolishly
tinkered with my settings to deprive myself of the mails.  Or my ancient
system no longer wishes to be helpful in keeping me in touch with old friends,
colleagues, and Durrell scholars and enthusiasts. I am very grateful to James
for drawing my attention to the discussion on the List which has taken note of
an old article of mine.
 

Denise Tart and David Green asked a question that I should have raised
myself in my paper except that it  didn't
occur to me then. One reason for Larry’s not going back to India could have
been that even a writer who goes around the globe in search of material and stimulus
to create feels the need to strike roots and settle down somewhere. The second
reason could be that he was seriously short of money and had no income. It
appears that he made a thorough survey of the south of France—weather was a factor—and
Montpellier and Nime among other placers were rejected because Durrell found
them totally unaffordable.  Sommiére, a
muddy, unhealthy village, stuck beside an ancient castle, prone to inescapable annual
flooding, some thirty kilometres away from Montpellier, was chosen because it
offered cheap space and inexpensive food. 
Sommiére is _now_ an hour’s train away from Montpellier’s but not _then_
.I think Durrell’s relative financial handicap was one reason he settled down there. He apparently,  then,  simply couldn’t afford to travel. Coming
back to India would be out of question, I think, purely for monetary reasons.

 

I think several suggestions have been made that Indian independence
would have made it impossible or undesirable for an Englishman to hang about in
the post-partition Independent India. The events leading to the partition of
the erstwhile British empire and the bloodshed that followed did not affect the
English in any significant manner (as it did a hundred years earlier in 1857 when
Indian and British soldiers fought and English civilians were mercilessly
butchered). The power was “transferred” from the British to the Indian
leadership and it wasn’t as if a prolonged revolutionary war had preceded in which
withdrawing British armies were expected to be butchered. A good number of  Englishmen holding jobs and positions stayed
on or in many cases were asked not to abandon posts administrative. The peace,
as always, was shattered by rumours, fears, and acts of cruelity perpetrated by
Indians themselves upon each other. Durrell’s fear of being an Englishman in “Indian”
India wouldn’t have been a reason for his choosing to keep away from India. Somehow
I think it is just that India was one of those things that were not on his
wishlist anymore. 


Gulshan 		 	   		  
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