One Hell Of a Life: An Anglo-Indian Wallah's Memoir from the Last Decades of the Raj. Stan Blackford

This is the heart-warming story of a backward boy coming from a dysfunctional family and a broken home. Unable to talk at age four, he was sent to a boarding school to learn to speak. Branded a moron and dragged through ten schools in seven years, he suddenly &quot;finds his feet&quot; and becomes dux of one of India&#39;s most prestigious colleges. Later he becomes an officer in one of the Indian Army&#39;s most famous regiments and Adjutant of its premier battalion.<br><br>Laugh at his misfortunes and exult in his successes. At age four he barely escapes a kidnap attempt, he travels to boarding school on the world&#39;s most famous railway, Darjeeling&#39;s toy train, which was once chased by a wild elephant. Accompany the author as he goes to catch a monkey and shoot a panther, and as his Brigade confronts the Russians over possession of the Iranian oilfields; and he reads fairy tales to a blood-thirsty Pathan warrior who asks if the stories are true!<br><br>Feel the desperation of millions as murder and mayhem stalk the Indian sub-continent. See the refugee trains, ushered in by the granting of independence to India in 1947 when inter-communal violence spawned ten million refugees overnight and one million hapless men, women and children were slaughtered.