Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

J.R. Ackerley (Author), Eliot Weinberger (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: January 31, 2000

In the 1920s, the young J. R. Ackerley spent several months in India as the personal secretary to the maharajah of a small Indian principality. In his journals, Ackerley recorded the Maharajah's fantastically eccentric habits and riddling conversations, and the odd shambling day-to-day life of his court. Hindoo Holiday is an intimate and very funny account of an exceedingly strange place, and one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century travel literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hindoo Holiday sweeps the reader into a Firbankian world of total absurdity, in which the wildest fantasies of superstition and of sexual variety and experiment are the daily routines of the palace." -- Stuart Hampshire

"His humour is the humour of pity and love. He is an artist of the understanding." -- V.S. Pritchett

"One of those books of rare occurrence which stands upon a superior and totally distinct plane of artistic achievement...It is a work of high literary skill and very delicate aesthetic perception and it deals with characters and a milieu which are novel and radiantly delightful. What more, in an imperfect world, has one the right to expect?" -- Evelyn Waugh

About the Author

J.R Ackerley (1896-1967) was for many years the literary editor of the BBC magazine The Listener. A respected mentor to such younger writers as Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, he was also a longtime friend and literary associate of E.M. Forster. His works include three memoirs, Hindoo Holiday, My Dog Tulip, and My Father and Myself, and a novel, We Think the World of You.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (January 31, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940322250
• ISBN-13: 978-0940322257
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #406,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Travel

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Must for Armchair Travelers, January 27, 2000

By 

Allen Smalling "Constant Reader," (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

The cliche "He leads a charmed existence" ran constantly through my mind when I first read *Hindoo Holiday*. How else would a talented but eccentric young Englishman more or less tumble into a privileged position as secretary to an Indian maharajah and have the most glorious and exciting things happen to him?

But it's real--*Hindoo Holiday* may sound like the title of a Hollywood musical but the writer is J.R. Ackerley and the telling is his own. His scenic prose style is better than any Technicolor in sharing his joy at his newfound environment. This book deserves a treasured spot in any armchair traveler's bookshelf.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Droll, often disquieting, observations of the British Raj, March 14, 2005

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

A journal of Ackerley's stay in the Indian province of Chhatarpur during the 1920s, "Hindoo Holiday" records and mocks the muddled morality and intellectual immaturity of both slothful Indian rulers and equally pampered British colonialists. After Ackerley returned from India, he spent several years touching up his diary for publication; he changed the names, toned down the sexual content, and removed passages that might be considered libelous. This recently published version is the first unexpurgated American edition, with all the cuts restored.

Ackerley's intent was to be mischievous and outrageous and comic; and his book became both a critical hit and, to everyone's surprise, his most commercially successful work. The book is at its best in its humorous depictions of the Maharajah, his private secretary Babaji Rao, and the contingent of valets, including the endearingly sweet Sharma and Narayan. For the most part, Ackerley's portraits are nonjudgmental and fond; he reserves his venom for the British guests and, to a lesser extent, for his sycophantic tutor, Abdul, and clumsy servant-child, Habib.

Throughout "Hindoo Holiday" there is a disconcerting, even creepy, undercurrent that revolves around the sexual despotism of the Maharajah, whose predatory advances are directed towards the "Gods"--his name for the boys in his employ. "Boys" is Ackerley's term; at least one is identified as being twenty and several are married, so it's possibly more accurate to call most of them young men. But, whatever their age, these youngsters are compelled to have sexual relations with the Maharajah--and with his wife while he's watching. Complicating this issue is the subtly hinted possibility that the ruler is suffering from the advanced stages of syphilis. (The paternity of the palace's heirs is a great mystery, as well.) Only a few of the youths seem able to withstand his advances, and Ackerley often must come to the defense of Narayan, one of the "Gods" who refuses to comply.

Ackerley reports these incidents with disquieting aplomb. His own role in these matters is rather innocent; according to biographer Peter Parker, he limited his affections to kissing and holding hands: "If he had sexual relations whilst in India, he left no record of the fact." (And Ackerley was not known for being shy about such matters in either his journals or correspondence.) Nevertheless, intentionally or not, the goings-on in the palace are emblematic of the corruption, indolence, and decadence of the British Raj.

Most modern readers, then, will find much of the tone and material and humor in "Hindoo Holiday" a bit dated. Yet Ackerley's memoir is still an accurate portrait of the time--and there are moments of brilliant hilarity.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really About India, January 18, 2001

By 

Hemant Sareen (India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

The first thing I should carp about (and that will be the last time I do about this book)is that it has never been recommended to me by friends or at the university by my teachers. The reason could be the the rather candid and matter-of-fact approach of Ackerly to homosexuality (belonged to the circle of friends including Forster and Auden):I should have guessed immediately because the locale is 'Chokrapur' whose American counterpart would be 'Ladsville'! One is left wondering if there was no persecution of people with different sexual orientation, after all, as its widely believed and is true, the British Victorian attitude were responsible(the British enforced out-lawing of homosexuality still persists in the Indian penal code) for casting a pall of repression over an otherwise liberated and taboo-proof(especially in matters relating to sex)Indian social order? Apparently not, for Ackerly carries on and there is nothing furtive about the advances:its all grown up and consent based.

The other point that should be brought up and very few readings have thrown up, is that India's cliched image about being a land of diversity(thats true here, for the Indians Ackerly comes across are of all types), colour, and paegent is totally ignored.No monuments are praised here, nor is the culture sung about:For a change here is a book about the Indian people and the Indian attitudes and psyche. Ackerly seems totally unaware of the cultural difference.He just faithfully logs the absurdities of a group of people without any prejudice and judgement. If one has read 'A Passage To India'(EM Forster), which incidentally is as empathatic towards the Indian people, tends to cast the characters into an heroic mould and makes them very rounded in the attempt to compensate(rather over-) for the contemporary British view of their subject people, one would find it refreshing and indeed intriguing that some one could empathize so deeply with another people and be so impervious to notions of difference and all the baggage British took along as luggage when they visited their colonial cousins. Ackerly carries no 'White Man's Burden' thus giving the book such a contemporary feel to it. like his pen and ink drawings, his portraits are laconic but truly convey the character of their subjects.

This is truly a book about real India, that is often missed out in glossy publications about the glorious monuments, or the patronising tomes about the Indian-way of life.This should be a must-read for anyone trying to understand India or pretends to be an Indophile.The patriots in India and the ultra-patriots in saffron policing the indian culture today should be ashamed for not having read the book and equally ashamed if they have, for then they have not understood much about their past.