Watching Gunga Din has gotten me in the mood for some exploits in the British Raj. It's a fascinating era historically, even if probably most of my interest comes from the highly romantisized material that came out of the Victorian's love for the exotic. Victorian and Edwardian literature and their visually striking movie counterparts like The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and The Jungle Book, and contemporary books like Slave of My Thirst (about vampires, no less) are examples.
Something about the juxtaposition between ordinary British propriety and the mysterious Orient is striking. The English culture uprooted and transplanted into a strange foreign land of tigers, abandoned temples, pantheistic religions, and plenty of Thuggee cult shenanigans thrown in for good measure... makes for interesting stories!
Probably it's just the combination of pith helmets and parasols.
It might be a fantasy land, but the world of Victorian India is still one of my favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment