THE TEMPLE OF ILL OMENS
A Novel of British India
JAMES R. BAEHLER
Copyright 2011 James Baehler,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0371-7
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIALS
Dear Mr. Baehler:
I just finished reading “The Temple of Ill Omens” and I was happily surprised because I really didn’t know what to expect..
The story is fascinating and superbly told. All the while I wondered how you knew so much about India…did you grow up there?
I know a story is affecting me when I either look forward to or don’t look forward to reading more. Some of the images about the war were difficult to read (emotionally for me), in fact I think I cried when (a principal character) was shot. I should have seen it coming!
Many thanks for such a beautiful and memorable book.
Marianne Lau, Architect
Mr. Baehler:
You have a marvelous capacity for “story telling.” You weave a fascinating tapestry of British life in India during the middle of the 19th century, albeit against a background of horrific tragedy.
Your facility to paint your characters with a brush so insightful, so rich and vibrant kept me constantly compelled to “keep reading,” filled with suspense and needing to know “my family” would be safe.
I felt as though I were there in India for a short time. Your faithfulness to history, in terms of people and events lends “such credence” to the book and a gift to the reader beyond measure.
Burton Pollack, Art Director
FOREWORD
Heat. India is heat. It is hot in the summer. It is hot in the winter. It is hot during the monsoon. It is hot during the day. It is hot at night. And burning beneath the heat of the sun is the heat of passion. The passion of sexual emotions repressed. The passion of religious hatred. The passion of a subjugated people chafing under the rule of their masters. But to the British rulers of India the only heat visible was that of the sun, burning overhead, baking the land and enervating the people. Those who could, sought shelter during the day, remaining indoors under punkahs, ceiling fans propelled by native boys, and sipping drinks cooled by ice shipped to India from far away Boston or brought down from the Himalayas and preserved in ice houses.
In the hottest months when English ladies could not leave their homes for fear of sunstroke they corresponded by chits – notes carried from house to house by native boys. Many opted for the relative coolness of the hill stations on the slopes of the Himalayas. Those too poor or too overworked to escape endured the heat with gin, gambling and infidelity.
Unknown to the British Raj there was to be no escape from the heat surging in the hearts of the Indian natives who served him in his home and in his army. One day that heat would burst forth and spread throughout Bengal, sweeping all before it, laying waste to the countryside and bringing death to tens of thousands. Those few who foresaw the tempest to come were helpless to forestall it; like Cassandra, their warnings were ever true and ever fated to be disbelieved. The price of that disbelief in lives and property would never be fully measured.
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