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Acknowledgments One of the readers to whom Indiana University Press sent the manuscript of this book called it a piece of “scholarly detective work,” accurately characterizing the research process, which involved suspense and revelation. While thanking the reader for the comment, I must say that the choice to carry out such work was not always mine; matters demanded it. The help of academic institutions, colleagues, and friends made it possible to connect the missing links, and I wish to thank them all. In 1996 the Folklore Society gave me permission to work on the folktale manuscripts, and in the course of my research extended help to me at every stage of the work. I am thankful to Dr. Juliette Woods, Jean Tsushima, Eddie Cass, and Jennifer Westwood for the Society’s decision to support me in photocopying the materials, in searching for William Crooke’s descendants and for photographs of him, and in meeting with the Crooke family. I thank Caroline Oates for support in the library and her active interest in my research. Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube became palpable for me in Gopalpur, which I visited in the winter of 1998. Gopalpur, Gola, in the district of Gorakhpur, was in Chaube’s time the estate of the raja of Gopalpur. Many residents of the village talked with me, helped locate Chaube’s house (now belonging to another family), and con¤rmed the scanty details I knew of his family. I thank them not only for their time and response, but also for their energizing curiosity about my research. Though I could not learn much on this trip, the little village had more surprises. Upon my return to Delhi I found two letters waiting, both from Gopalpur, both from Girish Chand Dubey, who wrote that he had conducted research himself on Chaube after my visit. Dubey drew Chaube’s family tree and gave me a systematic explanation of some of the most important biographical links. It is with immense gratitude that I thank Girish Chand Dubey for his completely voluntary and invaluable contribution. Dr. William Crooke is a well-known scholar, but his unpublished collection of Indian folktales was a new matter. The period of a century was long enough to disconnect the man from his scholarship. Helping me to understand interconnections , William Crooke’s grandsons Hugh and Patrick Crooke shared personal memories with me on several occasions. I spoke with Hugh Crooke by telephone for the ¤rst time in August 1999, and the conversation lasted more than an hour. He spoke and wrote to me subsequently and also arranged for new slides and photographs to be made from the old ones he provided. We would have met in Canterbury in 2001, but his wife was suddenly taken ill, and he could not come. Instead , Patrick Crooke met me in Canterbury in the house of his sister-in-law, Mary Crooke (the widow of a third brother), and showed me the contents of a trunk left from their grandfather’s time, which included the CIE medal awarded to William Crooke. He shared with me family memories and also talked about William Crooke’s brother, Sir Warren Crooke-Lawless, who probably played a small role in the Chaube-Crooke story in 1901 and 1902. Patrick Crooke also spoke about his own experience in India, which he had visited as a UN of¤cial. Our meeting lasted the whole afternoon, ending with tea, that bittersweet bond of Indo-British history. I thank Mary Crooke for hosting the meeting in her house and Hugh and Patrick for their frankness in matters connected to their grandfather , which in®uenced my understanding of William Crooke as a person. They also introduced the personality of their grandmother, Alice, who has otherwise been missing from research on William Crooke. The Charles Wallace (India) Trust and the British Council facilitated my research in London with two grants, in 1996 and 2001. I thank the Trust and Dr. Frank Taylor for their timely support. The Royal Anthropological Institute in London granted me special permission to access the William Crooke Papers in 1999 and 2001, and I thank the Institute and its archivist, Beverly Emery, for this. I thank the staff of the India Of¤ce and Records Library for their ef¤ciency and friendliness, which were often a balmy contrast to many painful discoveries in the¤les and papers delivered to my desk. I also thank Rudra Vijai Singh and Anand Mahendra for their help and care with computer...

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