Sophia Duleep Singh: How to torture the reader

Being a cynic is not that hard, particularly if you have been given something terrible to read or, to be correct, something terribly written. So, on the second last day of 2014, I made an old year resolution that I will stop reading this badly written manuscript and not waste my new year's energy on it and, on the last day of 2014, I gave my reasons.

I am referring to a book that is about to come out and hit the unsuspecting people right in the centre of their boredom. Sophia - Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary is the title and it has been written (mauled and mangled) by Anita Anand.

The book, since the Bloomsbury publishers insist on calling it so, revolves around Princess Sophia - the granddaughter of Maharaja Ranjit Singh the Lion of Punjab and daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh the dispossessed last king of Punjab. The scope for the book was immense and as a subject, Sophia could have been awesome. 

Consider these points - when the teenager Duleep Singh's kingdom is taken over, he is sent to England and from that moment onwards, his life is dictated by the machinations of the British Empire and its colonial politics. Singh grows up to being a promiscuous idle nobleman with nothing better to do than live ostentatiously. He is a favourite of Queen Victoria and is often pardoned his excesses. A bride is found for him in Bamba - bastard child of a wealthy German merchant and an Abyssinian slave. Bamba was left with missionaries in Cairo where Duleep Singh discovers her and marries her. From this union is born Sophia, the fifth of their six children and goddaughter to Queen Victoria of United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland and Empress of India. By the time Sophia is about enter her teens her heartbroken mother is dead, her favourite younger brother Edward is dead and her father, having gone back to his life of debauchery, has left England with a barmaid and turned rebel against the Empire. Drinking his way across Europe and living in debt, Duleep Singh ultimately dies a broken man when Sophia is barely 17. Then follows the journey of Princess Sophia - how she becomes a fixture in London society and her life of rearing dogs and riding the bicycle (a novelty at the time) and her eventual first visit to India much to the annoyance of her British mentors.

In the meantime, her siblings go about leading idiosyncratic lives of their own. Eldest brother follows in the footsteps of his father - debt and promiscuity are his lot, the younger brother becomes a pucca idle rich English sahib, one sister heads to Germany to live with her lady friend and life partner; the other sister stays back in the Lahore of her ancestors. Sophia returns to England alone and takes on her first social project - welfare of Lascars - menial seamen of Asian descent. Sophia is now on the cusp of the biggest turn in her life - she is about to turn dissenter and go against the realm that has raised her and imparted its values to her.

All this takes 175 pages of torturous reading to unfold and it is at this point that I finally give it up. I realised, though, that however promising the events to come may be, trying to read anymore was going to be detrimental to my dental structure (my dentist advised against gnashing and grating). There is no drama; there is no flow; there are no ups and downs and creation of any anticipation is absolutely missing - in the entire 175 pages that I read. It is not a history book; it is not a novel of historical fiction; it is not even a research paper, and I am sorry to say, it is not like any biography (the publishers tout it as such) that I have ever read.

All I can say is that it is a collection of very deeply researched moments pasted one after the other. The story digresses all over the place, there is no insight into psychology, and there is no interplay of emotions and there is no "feel" for the character, events or its larger impact.

I may sound like I am ranting but that is because I am ranting. Wikipedia reads are more interesting and I have been trying to crack this book for 20 days now. I usually read much faster than that but somehow, the lack of motivation to turn pages gripped me whenever I picked up the "uncorrected proof" that was given to me. It is such a lost opportunity, as they say in cinema parlance, the plot had everything - it had emotion, it had action, it had sex, it had drama - all set in the climactic times as the British Empire reaches its zenith and then begins the political descent towards more equal societies.

The inside back cover of the book tells us about the author. Anita Anand has been a radio and television journalist for almost 20 years, we are told. There are details of the programmes she has hosted on BBC Radio and Television. At the end it is mentioned that she has interviewed five Indian Prime ministers, three from Pakistan, two from Great Britain and one from Bangladesh. The last line says - this is her first book, to which I add if she writes like this then let the tally not increase.

And to any stout-hearted reader, who goes beyond the first 175 pages, please do let me know what happens in the remaining 203.