M.M. Kaye’s memories are as beautiful as her descriptive prose in this colorful and wistfully evocative memoir of her youth in India, which to her was always home. The reader will come away with a different view of India during the time of the Raj, and before the Great War. Anything but a political book, this is simply a breathtaking look at a time and place, a woman’s memories of the country she loved.

Kaye’s first spoken language was Hindustani, and though more a collection of memories of this beloved country closer to her heart than Britain, this mostly apolitical memoir dealing with her childhood does occasionally argue for truth, and a more balanced view of this period than now exists. She points out — on rare occasions — that in an effort to pile on against the time period, regardless of facts, many falsehoods have been created. Kaye maintains that some of these falsehoods were created by E.M. Forster, whom she holds in palpable disgust. Unfortunately, as she notes, some of these falsehoods were perpetuated by others once put forth, and though easily disproved — and Kaye does so with eloquence — the damage has been done, because they have been accepted as fact. As she notes near the end of the book, historians did not learn the lesson Orwell taught.

But enough of that, because that’s not what this book is in any way about. This is a memory shared with the reader, as only a writer with Kaye’s magnificent gift for words could ever have described it. There is much here about her father, about historic events, but the best moments, and most frequent throughout, are those where she describes a place, a festival, a country that was as much a part of her as any country can be a part of a person’s soul. Part One of Kaye’s memoirs is a potpourri of remembrances, of people and places, some long gone, of India’s beauty and history. These are colorful, crystal clear recollections of childhood houses which had names, and sometimes ghosts. Her memories are so vibrant that as she returns to this time in India, she lets us live it as well. Rather than a linear memoir, these are scattered but detailed snapshots of her youth, of a time and a place which will never be again:

"No one else will ever again live the kind of life that I have lived. Or see what I saw. That world has vanished for ever — blown away by the wind which as the Chinese proverb says 'cannot read'.”

There is a great deal about her father Tacklow at the beginning, his various posts, his integrity, his fairness. He appears to be a man worthy of the way Kaye feels about him. He spoke eleven languages, and had many friends in India and other parts of the globe at which he was stationed, but fewer among his own, because he found the attitude of many other British in India annoying. He taught Kaye from infancy — she was born in Simla, at the foothills of the Himalayas — that India was their country, it belonged to Indians. Tacklow also had a special gift I’ll leave for the reader to discover. He read books to her, fueling her imagination, and he spoke to her as an adult, even as a child. During this portion Kaye contrasts the warmth of India and its people with the stifled chill of British life she experienced later.

None of the big stuff is missed here, but this is more the fun and wonder of a childhood in India during this time. There is Holi, a colorful Saturnalia lasting for days, the Diwali (Feast of Lights) in honor of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, and to commemorate Lord Krishna’s slaying of the demon, Nakara. And the fireworks and sweets and lights of Sipi Far, where brides were for sale! She also recalls Mohammedan Festivals and remembrances such as Id-El-Fitr, Shab-i-Barat, and Mohuram. I am typing from some semi-legible notes I had to make while reading this wonderful and sprawling memoir, so if any spelling is incorrect in regard to these events and festivals, I apologize.

There are nightjars and monsoons, butterfly summers, and sentimental pilgrimages made by Kaye and her sister, Bets, later. But Kaye’s Delhi is Old Delhi, City of the Moguls. She stood on the British built cantonment area beyond the shadow of The Ridge, on Flagstaff Tower, looking out over miles of open, beautiful country, and thousands of years of history, including the ruins of Seven Cities of Delhi, which only then had 280,000 souls. She tells of Curzon House in Old Delhi, which later became The Swiss Hotel. She describes the cemetery of John Nicholson, the Hero of Delhi. And she tells of a Leopard mauling and the harrowing aftermath.

The reader experiences Christmas in India along with Kaye, which was a mingling of cultures. Dàlis baskets, gifts from friends of other faiths, were reciprocated on their special festivals — there’s a lesson there for us all, to be sure. Kaye recalls the Okla Christmas camp, and the jackel scare. The reader picnics with Kaye on the grounds of Khutab Minar, which existed over a thousand years before Christ. We take night trains from Delhi to Agra, and trollies in Narora. Calcutta, Bombay, it’s all here, as it once was, like a film in Kaye’s mind that she plays back for us, so that we can see what it was like.

One of the most poignant memories is of her father returning from an aborted trip along the Ganges. Only later did Kaye discover the horrifying reason the trip was aborted: thousands of Hindu bodies had washed ashore. Many had died during the Black Frost, and though Hindu custom and tradition called for cremation, wood was scarce. Many Hindus were too poor to carry out a proper cremation, so they set the bodies adrift in the water, only to discover they had returned. Kaye describes the horrifying, tragic sight in a way you’ll always remember, with vultures and carrion crows too gorged from feasting on the dead to fly:

“One learned very young to accept the beauty and wonder of that most beautiful and wonderful of lands, and with it the ugliness and cruelty that was an integral part of it.”

If you’ve ever wondered about the beauty in Kaye’s novels, her historical fiction, or her vibrant mysteries, you will discover some of the people and the places from which they sprung in this memoir. The Far Pavilions, Shadow of the Moon, it’s all here, and Kaye tells you where. But there is so much more in this beautiful memoir that it would be impossible to cover it all. Some of the descriptive quotes were so breathtaking I chose not to use them, as it might lessen their impact when you come across them.

Then the Great War ends. There is at first, elation, and then deflation, as Kaye discovers she’ll have to return “home” to a place that she no longer considers home at all, for India runs through her veins. Her time back on British soil, and her restlessness as she waits to return as a young woman, is palpable. There is a Knighthood for Tacklow, and the poignant death of her mother. And a final thought as Kaye quotes from Eleven Leopards by Norah Burke. It will rankle some, but as all balance seems to have been lost about this time period, however deeply flawed it may have been, it is a reminder of the deep love some British had for the country and its people, and that there are always two sides to every story. One can never read these beautiful reminiscences and doubt that Kaye loved India, and considered it home, both beneath her feet, and in her heart… ( )

growing up in India then being sent to board in England — good

Readers of M.M. Kaye's fiction will discover here the source of the characters, settings, and certain incidents of her novels. Most of all, they will bask in this warm account of a young woman's remarkable life--and the beginnings of a love affair with an India whose time has passed but which has not been forgotten.

Went through and read every M.M. Kaye book many years ago. I remember I loved all of them. ( )

5014. The Sun in the Morning My Early Years in India and England, by M. M. Kaye (read 14 Apr 2013) I read the author's The Far Pavilions on Jan 31, 1992, with considerable regard. This book tells of her father meeting her mother in China and of the author's birth in Simla, India, on Aug 21, 1908. She then tells in great detail of her life in India, apparently recording everything she could remember--and far more than I found of interest. But the book became progressively more interesting as she grew older. She left India in 1919, to her intense regret, and was usually unhappy in school in England. For some of the time she was in England her parents were in India, and she was usually unhappy in school and with the relatives she was with in England. Her father finally returned to England about 1925, to her great joy, and to her greater joy she and her parents and sister returned to India in 1927. I wish she had told more about her life after that. Some of the book is fetching as she talks of olden times, but she spends little time on other than family events and this is a defect as far as I am concerned--for lots of pages in the earlier pages of the book the reclting of trivia was boring. But one has a good feeling about the book overall when one finishes it. ( )

Read back in 2006 - I have bought this second hand copy to add to the next two I already have.

Review from 2006

This is a wonderful peek into a world that has disappeared forever. There were times when I felt that Mollie Kaye must have been a somewhat formiddable lady. Thre are times early on in the book, when I felt I was being lectured to on modern ideas and ways of looking at various things that happened in India in those days.
This first volume of Mollie Kaye's autobiography tells of her time in India up to the age of about 10 and then the very real culture shock of coming "home" to England for schooling. ( )