Indulge in Ipshita Nath's book, Meghan Markle's podcast, Parekh & Singh's song

Updated On: 18 September, 2022 08:26 AM IST | Mumbai | Jane Borges

The stories draw shock and awe, and sometimes, unbearable sadness

Ipshita Nath

It’s always the lives shrouded in mystery that deserve a look-back. Author Ipshita Nath’s recent book, Memsahibs (HarperCollins India, R699), draws from the letters, diaries and writings of Englishwomen living in Colonial India. At first, it might seem like an exercise fuelled by Raj nostalgia, but all history matters, especially that of those whose representations are inadequate or as Nath puts it “limiting”. “The potency of stereotypes and cliches was worrisome,” she writes in the book. “It was this that led me to attempt a retrieval of their stories [problematic or contradictory as they might be] aimed purely at reviving and reiterating their narratives in the way feminist historians have advocated for women’s writings for so long.” The book is an extension of Nath’s PhD research and opens with her mapping out the wide cast of “memsahibs” featured in her work, and those who lived in 18th to 20th century India. She investigates why they came and how they came—often braving arduously long and dangerous journeys, sometimes in search of a husband, or freedom from the stigma in their own country—and their struggle to make a life in an unfamiliar land, as they fought death, disease and isolation, to find a voice of their own. The stories draw shock and awe, and sometimes, unbearable sadness.
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