Richard reviews Dr Margaret in Delhi, by Waheed Rabbani

The author of this book has kindly offered one e-copy (Kindle or epub) each of ‘Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest’ and ‘Doctor Margaret in Delhi’ - so there will be two lucky readers this time. To be in with a chance to win, just leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

The draw will be announced about a week after this post.

Cover image (Goodreads)

Dr Margaret in Delhi is the second book in Waheed Rabbani's series (the first being Dr Margaret's Sea Chest). It continues her journey from Canada via the Crimea to India, and presents a colourful and varied picture of Indian life of that time, mostly in the Delhi area. I had not read the first book, so had some initial anxiety as to whether I would be able to follow this one. It is clear that there will be at least one more book to follow. It is a lengthy book (nearly 400 pages in the print equivalent) and a lengthy series to become absorbed in.

This story is almost entirely set in India of the 1850s. It follows Dr Margaret of the title (Margaret Wallace) as she travels from Calcutta - modern Kolkata - to Delhi, and experiences life in Delhi itself. This part of the book is easily read with no prior knowledge, as the circumstances of Margaret's earlier life are well explained in various stages. However, there is a short frame story set in present-day Canada, and I found this harder to make sense of. I assume that the first story gave some context for the various actions going on there.

But with so much of the story set in mid nineteenth century India, this is where I shall focus. At this time, the British presence in India was changing from its original mercantile base, claimed by the East India company, towards direct rule as a colony, enforced militarily. It was also expanding from a few major entry ports towards assimilating the whole nation. At this time, British leaders were largely acquiring territory by playing off one local ruler against another, and negotiating settlements which appeared fair, but actually favoured British interests and the rapidly growing ambition for empire. India, divided into a dense network of local principalities, alliances, and rivalries, was proving highly vulnerable to this divide-and-conquer strategy, and was beginning, far too late, to realise the inevitable outcome. The political situation leading up to this state of affairs is explained in considerable detail through the book.

Shipping at Calcutta (Kolkata), 1860s
http://www.oldindianphotos.in

So Margaret Wallace arrives into this setting, the child of missionary parents, and medically skilled by training. She is also recently widowed, carrying her husband's unborn child as the story opens. Waheed Rabbani has avoided the stereotype of a strident fundamentalist; Margaret's family are liberal in their faith and keenly interested in the diversity of religious expression in India, which allows her to interact successfully with many different people. She comes over as a caring and compassionate person, eager to practice both her medical skills and her ability to teach in all manner of situations. However, she is also lonely, rather naive, and often seems to have no real moral compass to guide her in difficult situations. Her responses to personal or sexual threats are driven more by social convention and personal likes and dislikes, rather than a clear assertion of right and wrong. She is quite luke-warm in her reaction to both pleasant and unpleasant turns of events, and the difficulties of being a single woman in a male dominated culture are in the foreground.

The fascination of the book comes, I think, from its focus. Rather than write an action story describing the military actions of this era, or a political drama looking at the equally fierce deals and betrayals, we are led to walk alongside Margaret as she pursues her own course. With lavish attention to detail of culture, language, custom, religion, food, and so on, the turbulence of the Indian setting is kept for the most part in the background. We have a personal view, not a national one.

Chandni Chowk from the Palace, Delhi, 1850s
http://www.oldindianphotos.in

However, try as she does to keep away from the conflicts of the rulers, new and old, this proves impossible, and Margaret is caught up in a web of betrayal and false accusation. It is not always clear why some people are so doggedly intent on blocking her progress - perhaps explained more in the first book - but there is something rather insanely determined about the antipathy of her adversaries.

This brings me to what I think is a central theme of the story - the playing out of karmic relationships between people, resulting in constant attraction or antipathy. In terms of Margaret's own Christian perspective, this would be described as reaping what you sow. Certainly her consistent and generous actions towards Indian communities, regardless of wealth or poverty, stand her in good stead in her own hour of need. But whatever the underlying explanation, the dogged way in which those who dislike her seek to ruin her life and reputation is a source of constant distress. Perhaps she will find resolution in book 3, but as reader, you will have to wait a while before you can find out about that.

Definitely a book to read if you like to be immersed in the details of a past society.  The book is set in a time of major transition for India, but the book focuses away from those, in order to explore the transformation of individual lives.


About the author:

Waheed Rabbani

Waheed Rabbani's The Azadi Series:Book I Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest won an Honorable Mention Award in the 2012 Global eBooks Awards Competition.

Waheed Rabbani was born in India, near Delhi, and was introduced to Victorian and other English novels, at a very young age, in his father's library. Most of the large number of volumes, had been purchased by his father at 'garage sales' held, by departing British civil service officers and their families, in the last days of the Raj.

Waheed graduated from Loughborough University, Leicestershire, England, and received a Master's degree from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. While an engineer by profession, Waheed's other love is reading and writing English literature that prompted him to obtain a Certificate in Creative Writing from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada and embark on his writing journey.

Waheed's historical fiction The Azadi Series, Book I: Doctor Margaret's Sea Chest, and Book II: Doctor Margaret in Delhi, are available at all Amazon, and other Bookstores.

Waheed and his wife, Alexandra, are now settled on the shores of Lake Ontario in the historic town of Grimsby. More information is available on his website: http://home.cogeco.ca/~wrabbani

About the reviewer:
Richard Abbott lives in London, England. He writes science fiction about our solar system in the fairly near future, and also historical fiction set in the ancient Middle East - Egypt, Syria, Canaan and Israel.

When not writing words or computer code, he enjoys spending time with family, walking, and wildlife, ideally combining all three pursuits in the English Lake District. He is the author of In a Milk and Honeyed Land, Scenes From a Life, The Flame Before Us - and most recently Far from the Spaceports. He can be found at his website or blog, on Google+, Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter.

Richard Reviews: Kurinji Flowers

Kurinji Flowers by Clare Flynn
Review by Richard Abbott

Please see below for details about the FREE COPY we have available to gift one lucky winner!

I wasn't sure what to expect when I opened Kurinji Flowers, by Clare Flynn. The cover image gives little away, and my main reason for selecting it was the synchronicity of hearing of the book while I was in India. To my delight it turned out to be exactly the kind of story I like. Although set in a time of turbulent affairs of state – including the last years of the British Empire, the Second World War, and Indian independence – the focus is firmly on individual lives and relationships. The central characters, particularly Ginny who we follow throughout, are not the prime movers in any of these events, but are caught up in the eddies and backwash of them. 

The book explores, and exposes, the emotional lives of these people, and the long-lasting sorrow of men and women bound up in habits and attitudes that divide them from one another. People here are occasionally selfish and cruel, but – more often, and more destructively – are simply uncaring, and unable to empathise with each other. This ambivalence is particularly highlighted in attitudes to marital relationships, where authentically loving ones are derided, but abusive or empty ones are normative.

Ginny, meanwhile, struggles with her own experiences of sex and relationships. Along with this, she is alternately drawn towards, and repelled by, the Indian culture of Kerala, and cannot decide whether to continue to please her social compatriots, or pursue the inclinations of her artistic soul.

It would be quiet up there, and I'd be alone to paint undisturbed on the terrace outside…I worked away, content in my solitude and heedless of the passage of time, until my concentration was broken by a voice I recognized.

'Not the most beautiful of vistas, Mrs. Tilman? Why should this merit your artistic endeavours? Just a dirty river and a lot of shabby dwellings.'

The book addresses this state of affairs in a compelling way which invokes grief in the reader rather than repugnance. The kurinji flowers of the title bloom in an extraordinary way only every twelve years, covering the mountain sides in a short but splendid spectacle. In a way which poignantly mirrors this natural wonder, Ginny experiences brief moments of joy in an otherwise barren life. The waste of human potential is sobering, and must have afflicted so many others of that generation. This waste is seen in Ginny's own life, in the expatriate colonial culture she is part of and yet despises, and indeed in much of the interaction between Britain and India through these years. Occasionally individuals do succeed in lighting up the narrative of the lives around them, but all too fleetingly. 

The resolution of Ginny's own situation, not unlike that of India herself, can partly be anticipated by the reader, but partly also comes without warning. Circumstances force her to carry out a profound reappraisal of the events of her life. The experience is both painful and liberating. From time to time in the past she has had to discard initial, often prejudicial impressions in the light of further information. However, the scale of the adjustment she needs at the end of the book dwarfs all of the others.

I dropped the letter on the table as though it was contaminated. My heart was hammering and I was afraid to open the enclosed folded paper…When my brain had at last processed the contents, I passed it to Hector and slumped forward on the table, head on arms.

Truly, it is well worth waiting for the flowers to bloom.

 
You would enjoy Kurinji Flowers if you are drawn – as I am – to stories of individual human relationships, and if you appreciate an invitation to walk alongside people trying to find a better answer to life than unmitigated loss and disappointment.

If you would like a chance to win a FREE COPY of Kurinji Flowers, simply comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread, located here. 

About the author:
After a career in consumer marketing, working on brands from nappies to tinned tuna and living in Paris, Milan, Brussels and Sydney, she is now happily settled in West London. Co-founder of the popular website, Make it and Mend It and co-author of the 2012 book of the same name, she is hard at work on her third novel as well as a book on fresh thinking.

You can find Clare Flynn at her website, Twitter, Facebook, her Amazon author page, Goodreads and Pinterest. 

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Richard Abbott is the author of In a Milk and Honeyed Land and Scenes From a Life and can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and Google. You can also find more about Abbott and his books at his blog and website. If you would like Richard to review your book, please see our submissions tab above.

Photos courtesy Richard Abbott