Indian Voyage
The Vermilion Boat. By Sudhin N. Ghose. (Michael Joseph. 18s.) "Nom of your French India nonsense," says an angry girl student to the author, who had suggested, for various complicated reasons, that she should call herself Monna Vanna. But the glimpses of French India at -the beginning of this book are not nonsense at all, and so delightful that they could have lasted a little longer; Dr. Ghose could have allowed himself more descriptions—or rather evocations—like that of the weddings which so often took place in his grandmother's house. He has the talent of letting his readers learn' a great deal about India because he never tells them anything, never gives them any factual or useful information—they are just absorbed into the scene as into a never-ending dance on a stage that is slightly too far away.
One explanation, perhaps, of this fascinating book is that the author is always discovering things himself, or rather he seems to have managed, as few autobiographical writers do, to have lost nothing, as he writes, of his own original delight. He discovered the Temple of Manasa, or the Golden Pagoda, as it was often called, almost as though he were a tourist, with the vital difference that he unconsciously realised that it belonged to him.
The book has a great richness of incident and situation, varying from attempts to discover "smart women" to the impact of Com- munism and its cultural manifestations on Indian students. The tone of the author's descriptions appears to be superficially naive but one suspects that he is much more sophisticated about it all than he wants to admit. He is better at bringing out the humour in everything—the Siamese fish who could not be prevented from fighting, the almost disastrous visit to the Talukdar's snake-pit- than at attempting a full-scale flight of fancy., The long, dream- like voyage in the Vermilion Boat, with its visions and fantasies, is
i not convincing, and neither is the hero's tomantic love for Roma, the beautiful Eurasian girl who coached him in Latin and always wore slacks.
Bpt the book, with its delicate drawings by Shrimati Arnakali E. Carlile, is good reading all the same; part of its unusualness and secret humour is due to what sounds like a slight foreign accent, until one realises that it is the rare experience of hearing English spoken just a little too well. The Vermilion Boat sails smoothly on most of the time and takes its passengers to a never-never land which sometimes resembles India. " `Get ready for your finals and intermediates,' the pedlars barked. `Question papers for sale! The very questions you will be asked to answer! B.A. question papers for ten rupees a set! B.Sc. papers for fifteen rupees! M.B. papers for twenty rupees! Money refunded if not satisfied!'
It would be too much to hope that it is really like this all the time.
MARGARET CROSLAND.
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