FRATER HOUSE BY BHASKAR GHOSE [PAPERBACK]

Fraterhouse, a college originally for men but now co-educational, was founded in the 1880s by a group of scholars from a monastic order based in Oxford. In independent India the links with Oxford inevitably grew more tenuous; those among the teachers who were English left. The links with Oxford were not, however, severed; a trust set up by a former banker who had worked in India, the Nicholls Trust, regularly sent out two lecturers from Oxford for terms that could last four years. The story is mainly of Nirmal Hazra a distinguished product of the college, of his disastrous involvement, in his first years as a teacher, with Aishani Mitra, a student; of his growing interest in Emily Desanges, one of the Nicholls Trust scholars; of James Ellis, the other Nicholls scholar, deeply interested in Sanskrit literature, who falls in love with Amanda Murray, a diplomat in the U.K. High Commission. As the seasons that make up a year change, so do the stories of the persons linked to Fraterhouse; some end, but are renewed in other forms, like the seasons. Only the college endures.