But if what Miss Pennywell believes is correct, and the English will read this old woman’s story, perhaps that will change. It was this kind of detail that saved my life when her countrymen came, looking to turn my home into a little England-only with the added benefit of exotic women and chai. I address the envelope carefully to “Miss Pennywell,” and I am proud of the fact that I’ve remembered to call her Miss and not Mrs. I take an envelope from my desk and bring it to my bed. But I have read these words so many times that they are imprinted on my mind they are the patterns on a butterfly’s black-and-orange wings. At eighty-five, I find it difficult to read my own handwriting. Their spines all open, the books look like old moths, just too worn out and tired to fly away.
Seventy-five years’ worth of diaries are spread across my bed, nearly covering the blanket Raashi sewed for me last winter.
He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have got the thing he wants. When he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. Raja Gangadhar Rao, for instance, has become simply Raja Gangadhar, and Rani Lakshmibai has been shortened to Rani Lakshmi.Įvery Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. Lastly, some of the titles used to address people in positions of power have either been shortened or eliminated. In keeping with their modern-day spellings, several city names have been changed, so that Kashi has become Varanasi, and Cawnpore has become Kanpur. It is the name of a river and is secular in meaning even an atheist can be Hindu. The term Hindu comes from the word Sindhu. It is more than a religion it is a way of life. The term Hindu is also anachronistic, with the “ism” added by Westerners in the erroneous belief that Hinduism was a religion. For one, I have used the word India throughout the book, although the country of India as we know it today only came into existence in 1947. In order to make nineteenth-century India more accessible to twenty-first-century readers, I have made several changes to the historical record. Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Touchstone and Simon & Schuster.įor my husband, Amit Kushwaha.
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