Blind Eyes and a Full Purse

I HAVE the honour humbly to inform my readers that, after prolonged consumption of midnight oil, I succeeded in completing this imposing society novel, which is now, by the indulgence of my friends and kind fathers, the honble publishers, laid at their feet.
Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., Calcutta University.
A Bayard From Bengal
Being some account of the Magnificent and Spanking Career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, Esq., B.A., Cambridge [The Whole Edited and Revised By F. Anstey]

It's 1936, Calcutta. A fraudster has swindled tea planters and investors in a scam known as The Great Tea Estate Swindle. The police investigation is going nowhere and a tea planter employs Jonathan Prosper to find the swindler. The search takes Prosper out of Calcutta and into an unlikely world seemingly involving a Rajah and his secretary and Prime Minister, and smugglers and spies.

There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice.
S S Van Dine
Twenty Rules for writing Detective Stories. Rule 7

Calcutta Cabob

I would be wise to take the Moorwife's advice. You remember in The

Will-o'-the Wisps are in Town, when the man had listened to the

Moorwife's tale he said, "I might write a book about that, a novel in

twelve volumes, or better, a popular play."

"Or better still," said the Moorwife, "you might let it alone,"

"Ah," said the man, "that would be pleasanter and easier."

Olivia in India

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"Cabob, that is Beef or Mutton cut in small pieces, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and dipt with Oil and Garlick, which have been mixt together in a dish, and then roasted on a Spit, with sweet Herbs put between and stuff in them, and basted with Oil and Garlick all the while." [Hobson Jobson]
Jonathan Prosper has a business to run, and two lucrative investigations on the go. He doesn't want to become involved in the mystery of the body of a young man found on a train at Howrah station but he can't avoid it. The investigation of the young man's death intermingles with his other investigations and yet another death to make a satisfying sizzle.

Many years ago I read (forget who or where) that in the classic English detective story the body was always found on the first page. I had a few ideas of cases for Jonathan Prosper to investigate, but there were no bodies, and the stories weren't really enough to expand into a book. I put them on a skewer with a more orthodox mystery story and made a kebab - or cabob, as it was known in British India.

The real detective, however great his analytic ability, often finds that

he cannot apply it to his case. The fiction detective never has this

experience; he finds his case ready made and perfectly fitted to his

powers.

The Technique of the Mystery Story

Carolyn Wells   1913

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A chutney for the cabobs:

A Calcutta Cabob, forty years ago:

Full Moon

"The problem for us is that not only do we have to walk around without being absorbed by the ground but we also have to earn our living."

       Philip K. Dick,

       Confessions of a Crap Artist

It has been a long time coming, but I'm finally able to get back to writing. 

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'I returned to the office in high spirits. Ten days well paid work that I might complete in six if it all went well.' Jonathan Prosper believes he's off for a paid holiday in the princely state of Domundi. But it seems that the prime minister of the state has just recently gone up in smoke, and someone else is missing, believed dead. It's springtime in India, 1936, and Jonathan Prosper has to work for his fee.

The Inspiration for the plot of this book developed because of a misapprehension. I was reading every autobiographical book set in India that I could find. Two authors had similar reasons for being in India, both acting as a sort of secretary for a maharajah - E M Forster, The Hills of Devi, and J R Ackerley, Hindoo Holiday. Both writers were gay, Ackerley being fairly open about it, unusual for a book published in the 1950s. I was aware that several other writers who had travelled to India were gay, and I gained the impression that there must have been a gay scene in India for a while. But there seems to have been no overlap in the times that the writers were in India. 
My book has a bit of a gay scene happening, but it based on several books and is quite plausible. The court of Domundi is based on Forster's and Ackerley's accounts.
Portrait painters were in big demand among the maharajahs. I've drawn on the experiences of two authors in particular -  W G Burn Murdoch, From Edinburgh to India & Burma, and Philip Steegman, Indian Ink.
I've drawn on Maharajah by Diwan Jarmandi Dass for some of the more unlikely aspects of the life of the maharajahs. 

Mantel argues that historical novelists have a different responsibility to the truth than historians: readers understand that a novel based on real events featuring real people will deploy creative speculation to fill in the gaps. But she counsels that even novelists should pay heed to the truth in so far as it can be established. “Don’t lie, don’t go against known facts,” she warns. For Mantel, this is important because it improves the story. “The reason you must stick by the truth is that it is better, stranger, stronger, than anything you can make up.” [from an account of Hilary Mantel's Reith lectures.]

Or, more succinctly, from Mark Twain:
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

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Alexandra painting. Delhi 1983

Every prince had his portrait painted

The Body in the Bokhara

"To make a complete catalogue of the misinformation which the rug fraternity hand on from one to another would need 'a painful man with his pen, and as much patience as he who wrote the Lives and Deaths of the Martyrs.'" H. G. Dwight. Persian Miniatures. 1912

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I've often been told that I should write a book about our travels in Afghanistan. I did, a long time ago, when the Russians invaded Afghanistan. An editor who looked at the manuscript told me that my trouble was verisimilitude - I'm too fond of accuracy and the truth. I needed, she told me, to learn to lie. What she was telling me that the book was boring, and she was right.
The point of this story is that even when writing fiction I'm still fond of accuracy and the truth, although I hope that I've got beyond boring. I'm concerned that the people and events in Afghanistan described in The Body in the Bokhara might seem unlikely, too much of a fiction, but they're all based on real people and events. The political events described did not happen in 1935 (to the best of my knowledge) but they do reflect what happened in Afghanistan in 1974 and 1978-79. Zahir, the King of Afghanistan in 1935, was still the king in 1974. The rug and tea dealers are all versions of people that I've known. And business is still done on a handshake.
A Journey through Afghanistan 1972-2015:

That's me on the left, west of Bamian, 1972.

Coup, 1978

Some sources for The Body in the Bokhara:

Chaikhana (teahouse), north of Kabul, 1972

Kunduz, Afghanistan, 1975

Kabul, 1975.

Troubadour, story teller, 1977.

Lunch

In the old rug bazaar.

In the museum, Peshawar.

Kiss Miss

"You are jesting ! What has a girl to do with love, who comes out to India? Common sense must tell her that she is here to improve her condition, which will be best effected by securing the most advantageous party that falls in her way."

A Lady
East India Sketchbook

Winter in India was the time for the "fishing fleet" to arrive - young women hoping to find husbands among the men who had come to India to serve the British Raj. And it's Christmas, known by the household servants as Burra Din - the Great Day - or Kiss Miss. There are several young "misses" in Jonathan Prosper's life in Kiss Miss, one of whom he's very fond of. The others are dead.

"There is no doubt it is more difficult in India than at home to obey the command of one's childhood: 'to behave pretty and be a lady.'"

Olivia in India

Where Gods Dwell

"Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it."

 J. G. Ballard

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When I first stayed in Sudder St in Calcutta in 1972, using a rickshaw was the only way to get around. With my strong Australian egalitarian streak it seemed offensive to employ a man in this way. I soon realised that the rickshaw wallahs would be unemployed if no one hired them and that inevitably they got a lot more money from me than the locals. That's how I rationalised it anyway.

We couldn't afford to stay at the Fairlawn Hotel in Sudder Street in those days but we managed to have a drink in the front garden. I did get to stay at the Fairlawn in later years, under the firm guidance of Mrs Violet Smith. People who have stayed at the Fairlawn Hotel might see some resemblance to the establishment run by Mrs Kransky at 15 Lahori Lane. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

From The Statesman, Calcutta, Oct 1902

The Jonathan Prosper Stories

"The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective."  Raymond Chandler. Letters

The books are finally published -available online. 

Amazon Author Page 

From The Statesman, Calcutta, 1900: