Anglo-Indian retired journalist Rudy Otter from Greenford, London, is particularly delighted at the arrival of Channel 4’s new ten-part weekly drama series, Indian Summers, which started on 15 February.
Based on British Raj life in 1930s India, the series coincides with a recently published paperback by the veteran journalist entitled "The Very Best of Rudy Otter – Anglo-Indian Funny Stories" which includes light-hearted articles and short stories on his early life in India in the late 1930s/early 1940s. There are also pieces on his British-Indian community created by the original "Anglo-Indians" as the colonial settlers called themselves. Missing female company, those British males took to marrying Indian women and producing offspring originally known as Eurasians but later came to be regarded as Anglo-Indians as well.
Already a bestseller in the publisher's lists, Rudy Otter hopes his paperback will attract more readers as a result of the television drama series.
Mr Otter, 79, has written news, features and personal columns for Asian Voice since the 1970s and still continues to contribute occasionally. His 58-year journalistic career spans newspapers and magazines both national and international as well as local, technical, trade, leisure and global company publications.
He said: "My book consists of 21 selected articles and short stories, all with familiar Anglo-Indian themes.” He wrote them for Anglos In The Wind, an Anglo-Indian community magazine based in Chennai, India. The quarterly magazine, which has a worldwide circulation, recently launched its own book-publishing arm, Anglo-Ink, and his paperback, described as "full of wit and warmth" by the publisher, was among the first to roll off its presses last year.
He added: "In those bygone days the offspring of British men and Indian women were called Eurasians, regarded by the white settlers as more Indian than British, and by Indians as more British than Indian. Fed up with their confusing identity, Eurasians decided they would prefer to be called Anglo-Indians, something the British settlers, the original Anglo-Indians, at first opposed. Eventually, in 1911, they relented and Eurasians were also allowed to call themselves Anglo-Indians, a move that delighted them."
For further details on the book, please go to www.angloink.com.
