Crimes and intrigues in the Raj

1920s India is an unlikely setting for modern mysteries, but British writer Barbara Cleverly has been quite successful with her Joe Sandi/ands series, writes VIKAS

DATTA

d1e killer's identity - Indian or European? Both could have disrurbi ng consequences, and, yes, March i s still not over.

Ragtime in Si,Jlla (2002) sees Sanclilands coming to the hill town as Jardine's guest and getting dragged into another m ystery when his travelling companion, a Russian opera si n ger, is shot dead at his side on the road up to the town Jnvestigaring chis and an ide n tical killing a year before, Sandilands unearths a dark underside to d1e glittering life of the Ra j's summer capital and someone prepared to kill to safeguard a secret.

From Rudyard Kipling, E.M. Forster, John Masters, M.i\1. Kaye, Jul es Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, to Bapsi Si dhwa, Manohar Ma lgaonka r, G ita Mehta, Ruth

Prawer Jhabvala, and R.K

Narayan, the British Raj has been a fertile setting for the works of some very well- known authors • in differing styles of narration. The colonial viewpoim yielded to cti tical post- colonialist n arratives focussing on the subject, and then ro a certain syn thesis offering more nuanced views of both the ruler and d1e ruled.

The last can be see n in Sangeeta

Bhargava's The 1/?orld Bv1ond • a poignant inter- racia l romance set in prince ly Lucknow before and after the 1857 revo lt; Thalassa Ali's Prm1dife trilogy dealing witb a similar issue in the Pun jab o f the 1840s, and lndu Sundaresan's The Spimt!om· ef Silence, with the same plot device during \i'orld Warn. Romance is, however, not the only genre on offer. Imperial intrigues and sensatio nal cri mes ca n be seen_ in Timed Murari's The T111pe1ia/ Age11t and Th e Lust r-'icto1y, wh ich cake up the ad ul t career of Kimball O' Hara (better known as K i pling's Kim) , or in V i thal Rajan, who chronicl es the (hitherto) unknown exp loits of The Great Detective in British India in Hoh11es of /b e Riv", Unfriend ly neighbours, antagonisms between diverse ethnicities and religions, and ferment in d1e wake of strengthening nationalism make post- \'<lorld War I lndia an apt setting for whodunits and thrillers, but not m any have e..xploiced this setting

Barbara C leverly has • w ith her war hero- turned- policeman Joe Sandi lands.

A Commander in Scotland Yard (not a typ ical police rank but one he ho lds for his work of discretely solving ccimes, including murder, in the political sphere or i n h igh social echelons), Sanclilands is iu Ind ia in 1922 to reach modern po li ce methods but, on the ve rge of remrning home, is persuaded to deal with some murders, which cou ld be "highl y inconvenient" for the Raj.

The settings are uniquely R aj • a canto n ment town, Simla; a fortified post on the Northwest Frontier nea.r Wazirisran, and, finally, a princely state, some how simultaneously straddling locales reminiscent of d1e Himalayan foothills and Rajasd1an.

The adventutes begin wid1 The Last Kn.rhmi,i Rose (2001) Acting governor of Bengal Sir George Jardine, on the w-ging of h is niece and the district collector's wife, prevails on Sanclilands to go to Panikhat, 80 kn1 from Calcutta, where wives of officers in a cavalry regiment have been dying in violent bm apparent accidents every March. A b unch of small red roses is then found on their graves on their death an111versanes

A ided by a smart Indian havildar, Sanclilands tries to U11cover the links whi.l e grappling with rhe ramifications, particularly

TbeDrJJ11asce11ed Blade (2003) is set on the ltnforgiving frontier wjth Afghanistan. Holidaying wid1 an old army friend, Sandilands is dragged into becoming bodyguard to an American heiress visici.ng the fort among an ill -assorted group - \vhich incl u des a RAF officer and a bureaucrat ,vid1 varj~ng perceptions of border poli cy. The trouble starts when an Afghan nob leman, who has come to escort one of d1ese guests to Kabul, is found murdered and his aide slips om with hostages. Sandi lands and h is friend have seven days ro identify, arrest and punish d1e killer before the frontier erupts into war.

Th e Palace Tiger (2004) sees him visit the princely state of Raniput. The old maharajah, a British ally, is dying, and the succession is unclear with rhe first so n dead in suspic ious circum stances while the seco n d dies drarnatically right before Sandilands' eyes. I-le bas co ensure survival of the l ast heir, a 12-year-old, while seeking to identify the killers from an array of powerful, manipulative characters at the court. Then a tiger hunt goes very wrong

Cleverly's stories appear interesting, with the ir exotic settings and complex characters, both British and Lldian, all with their own agendas and aUegia n ces, and unable to be easily categorised as good or bad

A modern, fresh approach is also ensured with d1e au thor not skirting issues that older writers wou ld never address, least of all directly - homosexuality, infertility, surrogate parenthood and so on. i\nd Sandilands is far from d1e virtuous, restrained British hero of yore, not averse to liaisons w id, pretty women, single or married The rest of SandiJands' adve n tures - seven, with die latest one due this year • a re set back home in Britain as well as France a n d are wonderful portrayals of d1e dark side of the glitter ing 1920s. But h is Inclian cases have a special resonance, offering a rare peek imo a bygone era: catch them.

''Cleverly's stories appear interesting, with their exotic settings and complex characters, both British and Indian

Cleverly's settings are uniquely Raj - a cantonment town, Simla; a fortified post on the Northwest Frontier near Waziristan, and, finally, a princely state, somehow simultaneously stradd ling locales reminiscent of the Hima layan foothills and Rajasthan

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The markets will be hel d on the first Saturday of every month from 4-9pm.

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