Book Summary of Sahibs’ India : Vignettes of the Raj
Culled from Raj literature, Sahib’s India reveals little-known aspects of their lives and their dealings with their Indian subjects. Drawing from contemporary journals, plays and poems, the author provides wonderful descriptions of British homes and servants, their tastes and fashions, cultural idiosyncrasies, profligacy, sports, hunts and shoots, giving us, with the relaxed familiarity of the after-dinner raconteur, a flavour of the period. The book is peppered with a host of characters—astrologers, jugglers, magicians, grass-widows, the ‘fishing fleet’, missionaries, nautch girls, mavericks and eccentrics—who made India their home as the British turned from traders to empire-builders, and is interspersed with period photographs, paintings and sketches.

About the Author
Pran Nevile was born in Lahore and took his postgraduate degree from there. After a distinguished career in the Indian Foreign Service and the United Nations, he decided to become a freelance writer and specialized in the study of social and cultural history of India. His particular fascination with the performing arts inspired him to spend many years researching in libraries and museums in the UK and USA.

Nevile has written extensively on Indian art and culture and also acted as a consultant for two BBC films on the Raj. He is the author of Lahore: A Sentimental Journey, Love Stories from the Raj, Beyond the Veil: Indian Women in the Raj, Rare Glimpses of the Raj, Stories from the Raj: Sahibs, Memsahibs and Others, K.L. Saigal: Immortal Singer, Marvels of Indian Painting, Nautch Girls of the Raj and The Tribune—An Anthology 1881–2006.