Thank You Mr Crombie

Mihir Bose

• Publisher: Hurst Publishers
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781911723004
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805261353
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Mihir Bose, born in Kolkata shortly before Indian independence in 1947, still feels an enormous debt of gratitude to Mr Crombie, the UK Home Office official who fulfilled his dreams of settling in Britain. Having studied there in the 1960s before heading back to India under parental pressure, he later returned to London. Shiva Naipaul, doubting that Bose could become a writer, mocked him for reembracing the colonial lash--but Bose would prove him wrong.

This absorbing memoir shows how Britain has changed dramatically for the better since the '60s. Then, Indian food was shunned, not adored; landladies wouldn't rent Bose a room; white women would not have relationships, because they wanted white babies; and he suffered several assaults, fearing for his life.

In those early days, Bose could not imagine that the British would take such enormous strides towards multi-racial harmony. While this extraordinary transformation has reinforced his faith in the nation's capacity for change, Britain's complex, at times deeply shameful, imperial legacy must still be addressed. India has been proving its doubters wrong, and striving to come to terms with its tortured past. Can twenty-first-century Britain, too, grow once again, and earn the gratitude of future generations?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1. A Letter of Thanks after 49 Years
• 2. Want Sons, Hate Dark Skins
• 3. How Scotland got my Parents Together
• 4. Mumbai’s Very Own Downton Abbey
• 5. Do It for England
• 6. Chained to the Colonial Legacy
• 7. Bengalis Imitating British Colonials
• 8. Bengal Only Knows How to Cry
• 9. The Baba–Ma Play on the Train to Kolkata
• 10. Instant Families and Ma’s Two Faces
• 11. Why the West Gets Caste Wrong
• 12. Not Upsetting the Travel Gods
• 13. America Overtakes Britain
• 14. Cricket, Israel and a New World
• 15. Our American Contradictions
• 16. To Britain with £800 in My Underwear
• 17. The Brown Man with a Trustworthy Face
• 18. Toilets, Water and Bengalis
• 19. Mick the Coloured Irishman
• 20. The Sikh’s Futile Search for an English Girlfriend
• 21. Not Quite Magical London
• 22. Don’t Ring Us, We Will Ring You
• 23. Race, Culture, Religion and Class
• 24. Time Out and the England of my Dreams
• 25. England Gives, India Takes Away
• 26. Farewell to England
• 27. Bilayter Moho
• 28. Back for the Colonial Lash
• 29. Love and Hate in a Changing Britain
• 30. We Money Men See No Colour
• 31. A Fake Journalistic World or Just Playing Games?
• 32. The Lotus Amidst the Muck
• 33. The Universal Grief of Migration
• 34. Playing the White Man’s Game
• 35. The Unexpected Maxwell Legacy
• 36. How my Outsider Status helped me Explore the Secret World of Sports
• 37. I Won’t Talk in front of That Little Shit
• 38. The A, B,C, D Roads Cricket Murder
• 39. Thank Goodness for Citizens of Nowhere
• 40. Taking on a National Treasure
• 41. The Muslim from Rangoon’s Lessons in Religious Tolerance
• 42. How a Multiracial Stomach Leads to a Multiracial Heart
• 43. The Gulf Between Blacks and Whites when Dealing with a Racist
• 44. Speakers and the BBC
• 45. Tea with Cherie Blair and London 2012
• 46. Nelson Mandela Defines What Freedom Means
• 47. Upsetting the Churchill Lobby
• 48. British Moral Cakeism
• 49. Did Machiavelli Plagiarise Chanakya?
• 50. Orwell’s “Not Counting Niggers” is Still Relevant
• 51. How the British Raj Pioneered Identity Culture
• 52. My Collaborating Family
• 53. Who Are You?
• Notes
• Glossary
• Also by Mihir Bose
• Acknowledgements
• Back Cover