Mamaji

In this deeply affecting chronicle of a high-caste Hindu family, Ved Mehta tells of his mother, Shanti Devi Mehta-Mamaji, as her children called her-and of her forebears. Mamaji was the shy, orthodox wife of a cosmopolitan British-and American-trained physician who held high posts in the public health service under the Raj. Her life was touched not only by the lives of her forebears but also by those of her other relatives, friends and neighbors. And so the book brings us close to a civilization remote from our own: India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With only a few years of schooling, Mamajis early life revolved around never-ending household duties, ancient home remedies, and orthodox Hindu rituals. Little in her experience had prepared her to share her life with Daddyji, who spoke English, played cricket, tennis and bridge at his clubs and, as a man of science, regarded her orthodox Hindu practices as superstition. Yet Mamaji could say, many years later, she must have sacrificed pearls and diamonds in a former incarnation to have deserved to become his wife.