War and its Pieces

IT8217;S an appropriate setting for a military tale told by an Anglo-Indian. A cemetery in the little cantonment town of Kasauli in the Him...

IT8217;S an appropriate setting for a military tale told by an Anglo-Indian. A cemetery in the little cantonment town of Kasauli in the Himachal hills. Whether it is Mussoorie or McLeodganj, there is a certain perverse charm in taking a walk in a hill cemetery, reading the tombstones, adding up the age of the dead and noting where they came from. This is where Lt Col Quintin Reginald Mulkally Oxley-Protheroe tries to trace the roots of the English part of his family.

An impending war with Pakistan and a love story take Twisted Cue forward. In doing so, Rohit Handa documents the military times and mores of the 1960s. The changes in the social composition of the army too are taken note of as officers snidely comment on how Agarwals and Saxenas are replacing Cariappas and Thimayyas.

On a holiday in Delhi Mulkally runs into Narayani, the estranged wife of an Air Force officer, who nursed him during an injury in an earlier war. They take off for a holiday in the hills that later has the husband threatening to sue for adultery.

Twisted Cue
By Rohit Handa
Ravi Dayal
Price: Rs 450

Meanwhile, there is Erica Green, an Anglo-Indian girl whom Mulkally took out dancing once. Mulkally, if you have not guessed, is quite a ladies man.

And then comes the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. You have to be interested in the technicalities of war and its battlefields to plod through this section. Handa, who was a correspondent during the 1965 war, packs in quite a few details. The bit about infiltration from across the border, the excuses of intelligence failure and the lingering status quo shows that nothing has really changed from the 1960s to the present day, except the dates.

The war ends but it seems a despondent end. On a personal level, it has spelt depression for a few officers. For Mulkally it has disrupted a romance. Narayani moves to America and Mulkally decides to shift to Australia, a favoured destination for Anglo-Indians. There he is injured in a plane crash and finds a nursing angel yet again. This time it is in the person of Erica who too has shifted to Australia.

Twisted Cue is interesting for its depiction of dashing Anglo-Indian officers and vivacious girls 8212; desired by conservative Hindu boys and feared by their even more conservative mothers. It explores the dilemma of Anglo-Indians, who were never really accepted by the British and could never properly assimilate with the natives. But Handa makes the mistake of packing too much in one book. The search for an identity, a love story and a war make a crowded novel. To that Handa adds an elaborate discussion on the Aryan excursions in India, asides on the Partition and Hindu-Muslim differences. Also the mimicking of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bengali accents gets a tad tedious.

Story continues below this ad

Twisted Cue makes an interesting read though it must be said that one has to have some interest in the army to keep going.