Full name: Begums, Thugs, and White Mughals: The Journals of Fanny Parkes

Author: Fanny Parkes Year: 2002 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, Travel Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780907871880 0907871887

Fanny Parkes, who lived in India between 1822 and 1846, was the ideal travel writer - courageous, indefatigably curious and determinedly independent. Her delightful journal traces her journey from prim memsahib, married to a minor civil servant of the Raj, to eccentric, sitar-playing Indophile, fluent in Urdu, critical of British rule and passionate in her appreciation of Indian culture. Fanny is fascinated by everything, from the trial of the thugs and the efficacy of opium on headaches to the adorning of a Hindu bride. To read her is to get as close as one can to a true picture of early colonial India - the sacred and the profane, the violent and the beautiful, the straight-laced sahibs and the more eccentric "White Mughals" who fell in love with India and did their best, like Fanny, to build bridges across cultures. Similar books: India by V. S. Naipaul The Story of India by Michael Wood India by Patrick French The Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham The Idea of India by Sunil Khilnani The Mughal Throne by Abraham Eraly India by Shashi Tharoor Karma Cola by Gita Mehta India and the Mughal Dynasty by Valerie Berinstain A New History of India by Stanley Wolpert No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru Calcutta by Geoffrey Moorhouse Plain Tales from the Raj by Charles Allen An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul In Europe by Geert Mak A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane Cities of Gold by Douglas Preston South with Endurance by Frank Hurley