Pran Nevile
Showing all 12 books
In his long and eventful career, Pran Nevile has donned several hats - journalist, researcher, diplomat, Soviet bloc expert, United Nations adviser, and writer. The story of his multifaceted life begins in pre-Partition Lahore and gives us glimpses of imperial New Delhi and journeys through Japan, Poland, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, the Soviet Union and the US as it follows his diplomatic postings. He turns author with an ode to the city of his birth, while his ...
The much-celebrated nautch girl, extravagantly adored for both her beauty and her virtuosity, belonged to a unique class of courtesans who played a significant role in the social and cultural life of India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The nautch girl, it may be said, was no ordinary woman of pleasure—she had refined manners, a ready wit and poetry in her blood. She embodied a splendid synthesis of different cultures and dance forms—the ...
Hailed as shahenshah-e-mausiqi (emperor of music) and acclaimed as the ghazal king, K.L. Saigal became a phenomenon in his own lifetime. Idolized for his distinctive style by the first generation of Bollywood playback singers, he is now also the subject of study by several scholars. With no formal training, Saigal recorded 185 songs, including the immortal Diya jalao jagmag jagmag, Rumjhum rumjhum chaal tihari, Baag laga doon sajani and Jab dil hi toot gaya. ...
Sahib’s India is a panoramic look at the lives of the British in colonial India. Culled from Raj literature, it reveals little-known aspects of their lives and their dealings with their Indian subjects. Drawing from contemporary journals, plays and poems, the author provides wonderful descriptions of British homes and servants, their tastes and fashions, cultural idiosyncrasies, profligacy, sports, hunts and shoots, giving us, with the relaxed familiarity ...
Women in India have always been accorded pride of place in both religious and philosophical thought. They were capable of advanced learning in every branch of knowledge and enjoyed high status in society in Vedic times. This was followed by a long period when their status declined and they were relegated behind the veil. The British authors have left behind fascinating descriptive accounts of Indian women, their customs and manners and mode of life during the Raj ...
The Nautch girl as an entertainer of men belonged to a unique class of courtesans who played a significant role in the social and cultural life of India in the 18th and 19th centuries. She represented a delightful synthesis of different cultures and dance forms the classical and the popular. The Nautch girl was no ordinary woman of pleasure. She had refined manners, a ready wit and poetry in her blood. She catered to the tastes of the elite who had the time, ...
Recognised as the greatest popular singer of the subcontinent ever since music began to be recorded, K.L. Saigal had a short span of life (1904-1947). With a God-gifted voice he brought music to the masses and became a legend in his own life-time. His haunting melodies continue to delight millions of his fans all over the world. Acclaimed as the Ghazal King, he was also the first superstar of Indian cinema and nearly all his films were great box-office hits. In ...
Lahore, first published in 1993, is Pran Nevile’s tribute to the land of his birth. Grounded in memory and redolent with nostalgia, Nevile’s reminiscences transport the reader into the heart of Lahore as it was in the 1930s and 40s- acity bustling with activity where people coexisted harmoniously, unfettered by considerations of religion, region or caste. From the riotous seasonal festivities of kite-flying to clandestine love affairs upon rooftops, ...
Pran Nevile's book Marvels of Indian Painting is a pioneering effort to explore and study the creative genius of those forgotten Indian artists who produced remarkable paintings for their British patrons. Defined as the 'Company School' art, these beautiful pictures reveal a lively fusion of eastern warmth with western objectivity. The author highlights how western ideas and artistic techniques were absorbed in the Indian tradition by these artists without losing ...
Stories from the Raj takes one into the lives of Sahibs and Memsahibs, and offers an array of entertaining tales about their interests and lifestyles-from the Sahibs' enthusiasm for nautch parties and pig-sticking, to the First Imperial Durbar in Delhi, to intriguing stories about Brahmin astrologers, and fascinating accounts of jugglers adept at the great Indian rope trick. Nevile's prose has the relaxed, easy familiarity of a veteran dinner-table raconteur, and ...
This selection of twenty-one stories of the Raj, written as fiction but all based on fact, shows a hitherto unknown side of the Empire. The British came to India in search of wealth and power. But it was a man's world and women, especially English women, were few. An English bride for long remained an expensive proposition, costing a small fortune to bring to Calcutta, and was quite out of the reach of young career-minded officers and civil servants. Driven by ...