Once upon a time, in 2013
In 2013 dovegreyreader steered her devoted book-reading crowd through the thousand-plus pages of Vikram Seth’s novel. Ever since then I have planned to one day go for a second read, for back then I followed along without any background knowledge. Intentionally I didn’t bother with filling in any gaps*, even looking up words in the beloved Merriam-Webster’s dictionary; I just took in the whole strangeness and what it as such was able to convey. Even unprepared did the book hold much in store to live in my mind and stay in memory. It is the entangled story of four families of various backgrounds in India at the time of Independence.
In the meantime
In the meantime I learned for some semesters about Mughal India, Indian Ocean cultures and in general the history of the Arab world, the focus I’m interested in. (E. M. Forster’s Novel „A Passage to India“ also belongs to those books I want to revisit because of that.) Some day, I shall again pick up the tome. And I still hope for Seth’s Plan to materialize and some day also be able to read the sequel: „A Suitable Girl“ …
A Thousand and four hundred pages in six film episodes
Yesterday, the new „Guardian Weekly“ arrived and announced a BBC adaption of the novel in six parts! How exciting is that! Here’s the trailer: https://youtu.be/mivflL9cwk4 . Hopefully I’ll get the chance to watch them soon, possibly in company. That would be great.
No 4711 in India
* There is a commentary from me to a note in the opening post, where dovegreyreader wrote about unknown things she would encounter, one ironically quite un-Indian, but illustrating movement of things and being a fitting example for the mixing worlds in the time between colonialism and independence. [What is the opposite of „colonial goods“? Ha! Ha! „4711 Cologne“ in India.]
Dovegreyreader: „I have also sorted myself out a notebook to keep to hand, […] which I will need to keep track of the things that jump out at me in order to write the posts. It is always odd (often very odd) things and so far these include purdah and 4711 cologne.“
Response: „Off to India then!
I know what it’s all about 4711, since it comes from home, almost. The producer of this perfume resided in Cologne (thus „Eau de Cologne“) in the Glockengasse (Bell Lane). When Napoleon took over (grrr) his administration restructured everything; they numbered the houses and the house of that perfume got – you guessed it: No 4711. There are illustrations of that scene to be found on the internet, with a flashy soldier on horseback writing the number on the housefront.
I remember that scent from the early sixties and as a naughty young sister played a stupid trick on my brother by soaking his pillow with half a bottle.“
Buchmerkur Schröersche Berlin 
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