Cochin, Kerala, India

A child of the empire

Many of us in our lives will stand on the edge of history, on the cusp of a change in the world in which which know. Sometimes we will be aware of the significance of the events which are unfolding around us, sometimes not.  From the first match won by a future sporting great to the declaration of war - events can be both small and also great both seemingly innocuous and also undeniably, incontrovertibly huge.

With these thoughts in mind it is with not less than a little moisture in my eye that I look back upon my time living in India.  In particular, of late, my mind increasingly turns to the last few days I spent in the country on whose soil I had been born and within whose warm embrace I spent the first blissful years of my life.  Looking back now in the dusk of my years as the day of my life turns to night and autumn turns to winter I can only reflect on the monumental changes being wrought in the years that led to independence and to our departure from India's shores to those of dear old Blighty.

I suppose I was aware of the shouts for independence becoming ever louder in those years.  200 years of the British Raj it was known to all would never see 300 not out.  The sun was beginning to set on the empire on which the sun never set.  Somehow though life in Fort Cochin remained the one of idyllic isolation it had always been.  At times a world apart from the rest of India its streets never thronged with more than an occasional motorbike and maybe an inquisitive cow or two.  For in the tangle of no more than 20 streets or so that I called home man was more common than machine and life reflected a pace of life borne of the heat and the fact that when everyone moves as slowly as everyone else then no-one falls behind.    

I spent my days wandering the streets, occasionally taking a houseboat down to the mile upon mile of Keralan backwaters to spend a worthwhile day doing absolute nothing other than laying back and letting the gentle waters gently lull me to sleep.  From restaurant to cafe I ate curry and drank chai with gleeful abandon - my time was my own (so rare in life can we truly say such a thing) and the wasting of that most precious resource has never since seemed less of a waste.  Occasionally I would dust down my notebook and scribe a few passages.  These days my early writings give me some cause for amusement.  A tendency for the prolix was my forte.  The syllables in the words, the words in the sentences and the sentences in the paragraphs stretched ever further into the distance, alas never quite reaching the point.  Cared for by the staff of our ample home as if I were there own never has a child known so many parents and so much love.  Rahesh our dear wallah would sit me on his knee as we sipped lime juice on the veranda and tell me tales of his homeland in the north.  A complexion of pure burnished leather the colour of the finest mahogany he was loyal to my father, his master, with a devotion and respect that still amazes me to this day. 

So, what of India now?  What legacy did the Raj leave?  Perhaps it is difficult to define.  The concrete and steel of the Indian railways stands as testament to the dedication of man - something tangible, something which still today carries daily a number of people so great and to be all but incomprehensible.  It seems odd to talk of India's democracy as a legacy of the empire and ultimately its foreign rule and ceding of independent, native power but perhaps it can be done.  Democracy surely breeds democracy with greater voracity than communism ever did.  Other examples truly risk - as indeed the above do also - a blurring of facts and contributions.  200 years of shared history does not lead to easy separation and allocation of what was of Indian origin and what was British.  India though stands today as an Independent nation in control of its own destiny and with an economy set to eclipse all and if such can be said to be truly a legacy of the British then I can look back with fondness. 

Alas I fear the case is far from so clear.  Empire as purely a force for good?  Few could honestly argue such.  As we increasingly close our borders at home to 'foreigners' it seems to be without irony that people talk of the sovereignty of our nation and the dangers of immigration.  A tiny island with grand ambitions our history of colonial crusaders means we have perhaps crossed more borders uninvited than any other nation.  Trade was our justification, boats and weapons our passports.  The dark skinned native was at most an easily quelled nuisance but more often than not a 'willing' (read controllable) worker to be 'employed' (as farm animals are employed) in the furthering of the aims of the empire's heart.  We now call that loose group of previously colonial nations the 'Commonwealth' - an ironic name I am sure.  Common was the natural wealth distributed throughout the empire but the financial wealth and power it created was ever anything but common.  The grand colonial homes now pored over by tourists and venerated as fine examples of this or that type of architecture surely hide a darker past than the guidebooks and brochures ever reveal.  Built through exploitation they are the trophies of men who so often took but never gave.  Arguments that the empire used the resources to their maximum extent ignores the fact that no-one will ever know what would have happened otherwise.





The Spanish?  There was never enough gold in India to interest the colonial descendants of Mr Pizzaro.

The Portuguese?  They tried - Vasco de Gama and his boats made some early inroads in India but they never had the b*lls or the barracks to have any truly grand ambitions.  That said; Madeira and Brazil undeniably make lovely holiday spots for the linguistically challenged Lisboner.

France?  No.  They can cook, they can design clothes but crusade. No.

Germany?  The empire building aspirations of the Germans came later than most but any dreams to begin their adventure in Europe before moving further afield were drenched in lunacy: "But mein herr, you yourself are not blonde?".  The might of the allies and some over ambitious military planning saving the world.  For no longer is the world one of one on one conflicts.  The crossing of borders brings ramifications beyond the invader and the invaded.  Rather the world has become one of gang warfare with the main two gangs, in simplified form, being 'good' and 'evil' though to which side one belongs is perhaps a complicated subject...

The India of today though is one I would recognise but with some noticeable changes.  The population explosion continues unabated soaring past 1 billion and ending who knows where.  The cult of commercialism and its most potent exponent the entrepreneur has taken hold with quite fervent energy.  From software to cement, from tourism to airlines many an India dreams of adding innumerable zeros to their bank balance.  The Western trait ever becomes the global trait.  The new cathedrals of commerce continue to dwarf their religions elders.  The hectic pace of life creeps into every corner - even dearest Cochin I fear - as tourism turns the tranquil into the crowded and families burst forth from every room in every building and from every inch of every pavement.  India though for all its well documented problems - poverty and how to deal with the byproducts of that mass of people being but two - retains its charms.  India is a country of experience - yes the Taj is beautiful but somehow sitting in the back of a flimsy Tuk Tuk in six lanes of traffic knowing only that you will end up somewhere, sometime always brings a smile...

I loved India.  I love India.  The British will forever be part of its history and it is my hope that in some way we will be part of its future as well.

A child of the Raj.