British writers, writing about India are of two types. One are genuine humanists who look at today’s India from an objective albeit sometimes sympathetic point of view. Mark Shand falls in the other category- ruminating nostalgically about the Raj, although, the present story is somewhat melodramatic and about an elephant.
One good test to distinguish between the two is to ask the question, what would the person be if the ’Raj’ was still alive. I am positive, Mark Shand would fall into the class of people who would live secluded in ’’McCluskeygunge’’ (a closed gate communty of Anglophiles) and sneer at the poor natives with an upturned nose!
Unfortunately, fair skin on its own merit(?) still attracts salutes in India. The three hundrend years of oppressive british tyrrany has been hard to shake off. Shand lives by the power of his white skin and rules with his green currency and day dreams about the serenity and glory (for the english) of the Raj. I have yet to come across a genuine expression of guilt or shame in a britisher about their colonial sins.
To take the case of India, the richest coutry on the planet, sucking it dry of all its resources and riches, and leaving it to fend for itself. And now Shand returns to satisfy his whim of travelling on an elephant and revel in touristic sightseeing of the poverty and the overwhelming deterioration! Utterly disgusting!!