In the Court of the Ranee of Jhansi
By John Lang
2015
First Published
3.67
Average Rating
181
Number of Pages
And now the Ranee, having invited me to come closer to the purdah, began to pour forth her grievances; and, whenever she paused, the women by whom she was surrounded, set up a sort of chorus […] ‘Woe is me!’ ‘What oppression!’ It reminded me somewhat of a scene in a Greek tragedy—comical as was the situation. Novelist, intrepid traveller, barrister-at-law, newspaper editor and uninhibited gossip, John Lang lived for a number of years in pre- and post-Mutiny British India, and his writings constitute some of the most vivid records of the time. Lang describes his meeting with the Ranee of Jhansi—soon to become the focal point of the rebellion—as well as his counsel to her; he also chronicles the wondrous and tragic life of ‘Black and Blue’, a boy of mixed British and Indian parentage, and his claims to a peerage in England. And, narrating a march in the Upper Provinces, Lang provides an eyewitness account of eight thousand monkeys, gathered in Deobund for a clan meeting. Written with a historian’s sense of detail, a raconteur’s delight in the unexpected, and a keen sense of the absurd, John Lang’s travel diary is a riveting read.
Avg Rating
3.67
Number of Ratings
43
5 STARS
33%
4 STARS
26%
3 STARS
23%
2 STARS
14%
1 STARS
5%
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Author
John Lang
Author · 7 books
Born in Australia in 1816, John Lang - novelist, newspaper editor and barrister, now best known for having defended the Rani of Jhansi in court against the British East India Company - spent a large part of his ife in India, and died in Mussoorie in 1864. A keen traveller and observer of human nature, Lang was also a raconteur par excellence. His grave was found after much tribulations in the cemetry on Camelsback Road in Mussoorie by none other than the ace writer Ruskin Bond himself.
