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The bare bones of the story involves a young
English lady who comes to Chamba to do research in, what else,
the various modes of Indian mythology. Her direct contact with
Hari, his intelligence, manners and the supposed royal lineage
bowls her over and she almost forgets all about research and
falls for him lock, stock and barrel. Love darts hit Hari in a
big way and he becomes a willing victim of the lovelorn disease.
In order to integrate the story with the palace, the writer
introduces a prince-princess duo (Siddarth and Tara) and their
pure feelings of love, concern and affection for Hari (the son
of a musician and a mother who was once a companion to the
maharani). After the death of his parents he is brought up by
the royalty and that is the palace connection.
Quite early in the novel Siddarth dies in an
accident involving a panther in the orchard on way to Khajiar, a
suburb of Chamba. It is left to Hari to hold the novel together
and also the royal family in which princess Tara holds the
strings, and has concealed feelings of love for Hari.The love
between Jane and Hari is not allowed to bloom because her
mother, who stays in Delhi, has other plans for her. The plans
include a marriage to a British citizen and then sailing to
England. Jane leaves Chamba never to return. Hari, in the
meanwhile, goes to Delhi to know her mind about a matrimonial
alliance but she is non-commital and he returns to Chamba
broken-hearted but still with the hope of renewing love in the
heart of Jane. Letters start arriving in Chamba and she
professes her love for him and keeps him informed of her
programmes, including an impending visit to Simla (now Shimla),
then to Bombay (now Mumbai) and finally to London.
When Hari talks to the hukum (the king), he
is not pleased with what Hari tells him about his marriage to
Jane and the king almost tells him that he has something very
precious which he would like to give it to him (meaning the
throne or even the marriage to princess Tara). But Hari is
smitten with love and rejects it all, but at the same time he
has a partner in Tara who helps him out and goes with him to
Shimla to settle the finale of their love in front of her very
eyes.
Most of the action happens in the few last
chapters and one is left breathless after a close reading.
Everything ends happily for the protagonist and his lady-love
but after going through a heavily-loaded discussion in 560-plus
pages. To lend authenticity to the tale the writer has done
thorough research to give us the feel of those old times in
Chamba, Delhi and Simla. He captures the reader’s attention by
giving various landmarks of Simla - Cecil Hotel, US Club, The
Mall, Fountain Bleau, etc. But in a tome of 560 pages he finds
no space to mention the magic of Chamba "rumals" which
are sometimes introduced as the "embroidered
paintings". Such intricately crafted pieces arouse great
interest and curiosity about the origin and form of the art in
the erstwhile princely hill states of Chamba, Kangra, Basohli
(all now a part of Himachal Pradesh).
All kudos to the Minerva Press for producing a typo-free
well-bound book, but the price of the book is bound to prove a
pocket-lightener for the lovers of Indian fiction in English.
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ONCE in a while, in the galaxy of popular
contemporary novelists of Indian English like Shashi Tharoor,
Upamanyu Chatterjee, Amit Chaudhari, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth,
Vikram Chandra and others, comes a novelist Deepak Munjral with
his debut novel "Swept Away", maybe to disturb their
literary hierarchy. In the novel Munjral harks back to the first
decade of the 20th century when princely states thought it an
honour to give the British colonialists a red carpet welcome.
