Manohar Malgonkar is a leading English writer from India. Born in 1913, Manohar saw his early years spend with the Raj in full swing. He joined the army and was promoted to lieutenant colonel before deciding to resign.

After retirement, Malgonkar settled on his farm near Belgaum and wrote several novels, of which “A Bend in the Ganges” stands out as an excellent example of English Indian prose. The novel set during the period immediately before the partition and the beginning of freedom is a skillfully crafted literary work.

Malgonkar creates a vivid image of that time and highlights the stark reality that along with freedom came murder, chaos and anarchy. Violence reigned and three hundred thousand people were massacred and one hundred thousand women were raped and kidnapped. Some were even mutilated. Twelve million people were left homeless. Manohar creates an excellent background for this setting in his novel.

The theme of the book is how this violence affected the lives of ordinary people, men and women at that time. Col Malgonkor creates three central characters that are brilliantly represented. There is a follower of Gian de Gandhi, Devi Dayal who is an ardent terrorist and his sister Sundari. Sundari is depicted as a ruthless woman who has nothing sacred and is half in love with her brother.

Manohar was a contemporary of writers such as Mulk Raj Anand, Khushwant Singh, and Kamala Markandya. But it is unfortunate that his contribution to the genre we refer to today as Indian Scripture in English remains largely unrecognized. However, we must remember that Manohar was a prolific writer whose prose and command of the English language was as good as any of his contemporaries. There is no doubt that he was one of the last of a generation that has vivid memories of the events that changed our nation’s history and society in the most profound way.

In ‘Bend in the Ganges’, Manohar is fully fluent and one cannot help but appreciate that he was not only a master storyteller, but also had an exceptional command of the English language. Malgonkar was referred to as his favorite Indian English novelist by none other than a writer of the caliber of RK Narayan. Let’s hope Lieutenant Colonel Manohar gets his due for years to come.