Reversing the Gaze : Amar Singh’s Diary, A Colonial Subjects’s Narrative of Imperial India

Amar Singh reverses the gaze. A colonial subject contemplates an imperial other. He begins writing at twenty, producing over forty-four years what may well be one of the world’s longest continuous diaries. These selections from the years 1898 to 1905 are the work of the young Amar Singh. He records his sense of discovery and surprise at diverse sites – the Jodhpur court, the women’s quarters of the Jaipur haveli, Lord Curzon’s Imperial Cadet Corps. Through daily entries, the reader experiences the immediacy of Amar Singh’s subjectivity.