Skin Deep

Skin Deep by Nergis Dalal; Delhi: Penguin Books; 2005; pp. 301; Rs. 250

And that sentence on page 3 sets the tone for the rest of the book. It is really not "about the complexities of human relationships," which is what the book's back cover says, but about the author's barely suppressed love affair with the Raj, with those wonderful days when there were twenty-one gun salutes, terraced cottages in Mussorie, lacy socks, pretty men and radiant, sunlit gardens--the rapt lushness that pervades the whole book made me feel as if I had been hit by a truck laden with flowers. I suppose there is a market for this kind of stuff, but, I have to wonder, where? Inside India? Outside it?

Now the good news: I learnt a new word. The characters here don't trim hedges and rose bushes with clippers, like ordinary folks/gardeners do--they do it with 'secateurs!' This is that kind of a book!

Khademul Islam is literary editor, The Daily Star.