Forster’s India

208 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QU"RTERLY FORSTER'S INDIA" HUGH N. MACLEAN In 1912- 13, and again in 1921, E. M. Forster visited India. Three years later, the immediate result of those experiences appeared: A Passage to India. Mter that, silence. Only "fugitive pieces" and the quickly abandoned early chapters of a novel (opening on a liner bound for India) were published before the recent Two Cheers for Democracy. Now he has chosen to speak again of his Indian years. The announcement of the new book suggested that Forster was at last prepared to account for the long silence, and to explain what India has meant to his own career. But this will certainly never be. Forster withdraws continually before the brash demands of critics who want "just the facts." India, therefore, like the god in Forster's novel, "neglects to come." Nevertheless , The Hill of Devi has something for nearly everyone: it is an instructive exemplum for writers and critics, a brilliant travel-book, a biographical memoir looking back to pre-Boswellian tradition and to a world which preferred the assumptions of faith to the attractions of realistic anecdote. The hook is certainly full of mischievous asides and sly glances, not always directed at the English in India. But it is essentially a tribute to the Indian whose personality and beliefs jarred Forster permanently from the rather self-conscious air of Cantabrigian amusement which seemed to be claiming him. Mter one had known the Maharajah of Dewas State Senior, it was evidently difficult to be quite as sure of oneself. Forster's acquaintance with the Maharajah quickly deepened to friendship and affinity. This led, in 1921, to a term as private secretary to the Indian ruler while the incumbent took sick leave in England . The Englishman soon settled in to the usually splendid, often childish, and regularly astonishing court life in one of the smallest and most preposterous of India's princely states. He had a scrumptious time. He learned a lot, too. The early letters, for all their grasp of events and character, are very English indeed. Forster even calls up Miss Bates on one occasion to comment dryly on the outlandish scene. Later this is not so: "English manners out here have improved wonderfully in the last eight years"; and, although he adopted a bantering tone in his letters, he enjoyed "acting as priest" during the festival season, for "one hasn't to say anything, still less to feel." It is rather daring of Forster to have provided any illustrations; but since he has chosen and arranged a curious set of photographs, *The Hill of Devi: Being Leltt!Ts from Dewas State Senior. By E. M. FORSTER. London: Edward Arnold & Co. [Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada], 1953. Pp. ii, 176. $3.00. REVIEWS 209 a glance at them is justified, for they are a guide to the book. The frontispiece is a full-length, rather pompous pose of the Maharajah. This is the real man, proud and aspiring; but a smile may well be one's initial reaction. Next, the sacred Hill itself: calm, meditative, with the quiet lake in the foreground. There are two dim figures in a boat-Aziz and Fielding, perhaps. Background music, as soothing accompaniment to the wild extravagances and sorry mishaps to be recorded of Dewas Senior. Then the central figure at play: only the Maharajah is at ease in the stiff circle of gambling courtiers, so conscious of the camera. And the next picture also emphasizes his individuality , as (genial host at a house party) he twinkles in the midst of a solemn group. Now the tone deepens: a close-up shows that the twinkle is deceptive. This countenance has far greater potential than one realized: it is even stern. The next is a strange picture. The whole Court stares out at the reader, and the Maharajah is almost lost among these dark faces. That is proper, for India is about to reclaim him. At last we are confronted by the disturbing, but not in any sense dreadful, picture of the Maharajah after a penitential fast, nearing death. This is quite different from what has gone before; but a turn back...