The wayward empire: ‘Days of the Raj’ by Pramod K Nayar

Picking up any book that bears a quaint gramophone, a derby, a tennis racket and the British flag on the cover brings to mind a light-hearted tale my otherwise serious grandfather once shared. An English – for Indians, all white foreigners fall into this catchall category, leave aside making fine distinctions between Scots and Irish – officer turns to take command of the parade and orders Column will advance! No one stirs. The bewildered officer turns to the subedar-major, who shouts Kallam billad bans! and the native Indian soldiers march forward. Similar phonetic wordplays about English ladies being taught everyday phrases like There was a banker for Darwaza band kar (ie, close the door), and There was a cold day for Darwaza khol de (open the door), provided us much amusement while growing up in the cantonments of independent India.

This kind of playing-on-words finds unexpected support from Pramod K Nayar, a professor of English at the University of Hyderabad. "Negotiations with servants very often involved long and laborious conversations in 'Hindustani'," he writes, "which the Memsahibs had to acquire if they wanted to run efficient households." In a suitably benevolent mood, one flicks open Days of the Raj and the preface heightens expectations, promising, "The most entertaining sections of the imperial archives … is writings that deal with such mundane things as the right amount of spice in making fish soup or dealing with a truculent dhobi." On the subject of archives, the book informs us that British India left behind the largest imperial archive in the world, with the East India Company material alone comprising nine miles of shelving. This explains one of life's mysteries, clearing up why it is that Indians doing research on India jet off to London at every opportunity.