Free A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee Page A

seemed, almost a
thousand miles away. The problem was this: how did you go about educating Indian women if you didn’t get to see them in the first place? But what would be the purpose of access if the two
sides couldn’t talk to each other? She felt she was being whirled around in a giant cartwheel that had no beginning, no end, only a frustrating, endless going around in circles. James just
grunted his ‘See, I told you so’ grunt and said things were best left as they stood; these Indian women were never going to be let out of their prison by their men. They played by very
different rules here and why didn’t Maud just leave these things well alone and concentrate instead on other things.
    What other things?
    Oh, well, the Hart-Davises were having a polo week in Hyderabad, wouldn’t she like to go?
    And what would she do there?
    Well, erm, she could watch, couldn’t she?
    Well, Indian social traditions and the frosty complacency of the Raj hadn’t quite reckoned with the stubbornness of Miss Gilby. She pleaded, argued, debated, threatened, quarrelled,
cajoled till she had extracted from her brother a firm promise to write to his friend (well, kind of friend), the Maharajah of Mysore, and wield his influence to get Miss Gilby and a few of her
friends into his household to mingle with the ladies.
    The first meeting had seen Jane Fearfield, Iris Shepherd and Maud Gilby, excited and nervous as girls on the eve of their stepping-out ball, traverse a distance of more than three hundred
miles by train and then received by the Maharajah’s carriage to be driven a liver-jostling five miles or so to the palace where the ladies would stay as royal guests for three nights. The
ladies could not forget – how could they? they had been told so many times by so many different sets of people – the trouble James, a few other high-ranking Raj officials and His
Highness the Maharajah of Mysore had been through to ensure this meeting. Rules had been broken on both sides, and rules, both spoken and unspoken, dense legions of them, had to be observed
meticulously in this rare conjunction across the divide. The English ladies were to stick resolutely to the women’s quarters of the palace, they were not to drink alcohol or ask for it, there
would be one Anglo and two Indian guards escorting them to the palace and staying in the servants’ quarters while they visited. The ladies had even been given a short, concentrated course on
household customs in both Hindu and Muslim families so that they didn’t fall into easy errors, humiliating or offensive, to which an unfamiliarity with the dizzying sets of rules could easily
have led them.
    The meetings hadn’t gone well from the very outset, when Jane Fearfield, the newest and the youngest member of their informal little club, hadn’t been able to control her giggling
fit at being garlanded with flowers as soon as they had stepped across the threshold.
    Not a single lady in the Maharajah of Mysore’s family spoke or understood English. This was the first thing they had been told by a palace official – old and elaborately turbaned,
with his eyes permanently focused on something an inch or so away from his feet – who was going to double as interpreter during the ‘honourable’ ladies’ visit to His
Highness’s ‘humble abode’.
    Never mind, Miss Gilby thought, while watching Jane fidget with the silk and muslin handkerchieves they had been given as honoured guests of the Maharajah, delicate pieces of cloth doused to
saturation point with some heavy attar – roses or maybe jasmine, but at this concentration it was impossible to tell – which immediately made the head reel and the temples clutch
with the slow beginnings of an obstinate headache. Never mind their inability to speak English, Miss Gilby thought; the main thing was to meet, exchange news and views and become familiar, although
how this was going to be done without a common language, she did not