Dame Rumer Godden became a popular and successful writer writing about and during the heydays of the Raj. Her writing career had begun with "Rungli-Rungliot" which she had donated to the War Office for free distribution to the Armed Forces; it was oublished by Penguins in paperback.
It became an instant hit; she resurrected it a decade later in a redacted version as "This Far and No Further", in much mellower and humane form.
Dame Rumer Godden's third book "Black Narcissus" from Zinglam was actually a celebration of her father's love life. It deals in intimate details with Kanchhi, the principal figure of the book, and in all fairness, her own step-mother. Rumer Godden very carefully emphasizes that Kanchhi was only a concubine and be that as it may, yet she depicts her father being General Dilip Rai, a local Prince of the Gurkhas
However, the movie version of Black Narcissus greatly disappointed Dame Rumer Godden where the integrity of the novel itself was utterly ruined as they left out the ethnic identity of Kanchhi and Indianized the entire story, so much so that even her father appears as an Indian Prince.
This is the very first step therefore, to throw some light on that chapter of the Raj where some fine Anglo-Saxon sons of the Raj had lived and raised children with their Gurkha Mems; that somewhere there is a piece of land where the Brits had inter-acted with the Gurkhas socially.
It became an instant hit; she resurrected it a decade later in a redacted version as "This Far and No Further", in much mellower and humane form.
Dame Rumer Godden's third book "Black Narcissus" from Zinglam was actually a celebration of her father's love life. It deals in intimate details with Kanchhi, the principal figure of the book, and in all fairness, her own step-mother. Rumer Godden very carefully emphasizes that Kanchhi was only a concubine and be that as it may, yet she depicts her father being General Dilip Rai, a local Prince of the Gurkhas
However, the movie version of Black Narcissus greatly disappointed Dame Rumer Godden where the integrity of the novel itself was utterly ruined as they left out the ethnic identity of Kanchhi and Indianized the entire story, so much so that even her father appears as an Indian Prince.
This is the very first step therefore, to throw some light on that chapter of the Raj where some fine Anglo-Saxon sons of the Raj had lived and raised children with their Gurkha Mems; that somewhere there is a piece of land where the Brits had inter-acted with the Gurkhas socially.
