Forgotten Classic of 1962: Combat of Shadows by Manohar Malgonkar

Indian author Manohar Malgonkar’s third novel, Combat of Shadows is set in the North-Eastern Indian state of Assam over the course of a few months.

When the novel opens in September 1938, we meet Henry Winton, the manager of a tea-estate who is happy with his life, lording over the Indians and delighting in his carefree bachelor life. His ambition seems to be to win the approval of the tea company’s Resident Director, Sir Jeffrey Dart. His insecurity to be the blue-eyed boy of Dart is tied to his early professional failures. So keen is Winton to be liked by the higher authorities that he has completely internalized the propaganda of the empire. He likes Indians only when they are servile and humble and hates the Anglo-Indians (people of mixed Indian and European ancestry) whom he considers as living symbols of a sexual union that he abhors and is repulsed by.

However, when he meets Ruby Miranda, an Anglo-Indian girl, he offers her a job as a headmistress in the plantation’s school though she does not have the requisite qualifications, as his purpose is more to seduce her and make her his mistress. Not that Ruby complains though. Like majority of the Anglo-Indians, she is keen to denounce her Indian ancestry and become one with the British. And how better to obtain that coveted position than to become the wife of a Pukka Sahib. At the same time, Ruby cannot deny her attraction towards Eddie Trevors, an Anglo-Indian like herself and a Hockey star of India who had represented India in the Berlin Olympics [For the uninitiated, (British) India won the gold in the competition defeating Germany 8-1. Later the Hockey wizard, Dhyan Chand who served as a Naik (corporal) in the British Indian army was offered the post of an officer in the German army by Hitler which he politely declined].

Things are progressing smoothly between Henry and Ruby but the country is changing. There is unrest in the tea estate and workers go on strike incited by Henry’s chief stockman, Jugal Kishore whose niece, Gauri, had once been caught stealing tea-leaves from his estate. Henry is able to nip the strike in the bud but alarmed by his own growing fascination for Ruby; Dart’s indirect warning that marriage with an Anglo-Indian girl would bring an end to his career and prestige; conviction that Ruby is still seeing Eddie and has been instrumental in getting Eddie the job of the stockman after Jugal Kishore’s resignation; and appalled by how easily he can resort to violence, he decides to take home-leave. When he returns, he brings home a wife, Jean, a British girl whom he had been attracted to earlier but who had rejected his proposal as she was in love with another man.

Meanwhile war breaks out in Europe and Henry decides to join the war but before that there is an unfinished business with an elephant….

Malgonkar’s novel is a deft study of man-woman relationship in a colonial situation. Through the lives, loves, and lusts of Henry, Ruby, Eddie, Jean, and Gauri the author explores the complexities of the time when the personal becomes the political and vice-versa. The vindictiveness of the Indians after years of being crushed; the self-loathing of the Anglo-Indians; and the hypocrisy and the tensions of being the tough sahibs always of the British are vividly brought about by the author. The elephant episode which pays homage to Orwell’s masterly study of Sahib psychology: Shooting an Elephant – is handled skillfully.

This is my third read of Malgonkar but the first that has actually made me want to explore more of his writings. Recommended.

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First Line: Shotgun under one arm, retriever at his heels, two plump chukor partridges dangling from his game-belt, Henry Winton began the steep climb up the bridle-path; pleasantly tired, hungry for breakfast, ready for his day, ready for anything.

Publication Details: 1962. ND: Hind Pocket Books, 1968

Dedication: For Faly Petit as from a shikari to a hunter

Pages: 289

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Also submitted for FFB @SweetFreedom