Almost unintentionally, Bond emerges as the gentle historian of the last days of the Raj and the first few years of the new dispensation. His is not the grand historian’s view. A delightful, ironic worms-eye view touched with nostalgia, but not of the crassly sentimental type. When Bond’s personality intrudes into the narrative it does so without a trace of conceit or vanity. The fact that he gets along well with his stepfather’s ex-wife is generously attributed to the ways of India and Indian society. He takes no credit for the fact that despite his childhood traumas, he is such a wonderfully well-adjusted personality. The description of his first kiss is simply brilliant in its charm and humour. The grandmother’s last tonga ride and departure from Dehra is a better requiem for the two hundred year history of the Raj than anything else I have read.

Again without making too much of a fuss, Bond captures what it means to be an Anglo-Indian, a member of an “in-between” community. It has been argued that they were children of the Raj, abandoned by the British. Bond is not interested in pursuing victimhood. He merely “holds up a mirror” and it is for us to look into it. I for one made a connect. As a boy, I had friends with names like Denzil and Alistair and teachers with names like Miss Edwards and Mr Vance. I lived in Shimla for a short while in the ’50s. Bond’s book brought it all back to me!

... contd.