35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘EUROPEANS ARE COMING TO MY COUNTRY NOW’
irony. Without either window or toilet – two European fripperies
scorned by the management – it was equipped with a set of double
doors which, if closed, sealed you in hermetically until you
fainted; if left open, exposed your questionable charms to the
approval of the entire courtyard.
John Barrymore, Somerset Maugham, and Prince Aly Khan, on
the other hand, had no complaints about Taj facilities: they all
returned after their first stay as guests.
But great hotels do reflect the fortunes and misfortunes of their
cities. If the First World War had barely touched India, the Second
World War was very different. British and Indian troops fought the
Japanese in Burma, as well as the Germans in the Middle East.
Bombay’s port saw many troopships on their way from and to the
killing fields. The Taj supported the war effort, converting rooms
into dormitories for soldiers, providing modified luxury for budget
guests. Indians rallied behind the imperial masters in their hour of
need, many dispatched to die in the deserts of the Middle East or the
jungles of Asia. Although India’s heart was not in the war, the leaders
of the independence movement honourably refused to capitalise
on Britain’s sudden vulnerability. Gandhi himself said, ‘We do not
seek independence out of Britain’s ruin.’ The war froze the colony’s
progress toward his goal and so did the dreadful Bengal famine of
1943, precipitated by the cutting off of Burmese rice. Britain
promised that the independence process would be resumed when
the war was over.
Many significant meetings were held, covertly and overtly, in
the Taj during these years, just as several major historical events
during the preceding years had been engineered or thrashed out in
the hotel’s restaurants, bars, and private rooms. Here, too, it is
rumoured, Nehru and Lady Mountbatten, wife of India’s last viceroy,
played out at least one scene from their love affair, according to a
source inside the Gandhi family. Perhaps the affair’s symbolism is a
little too perfect.
By 1948, when Perelman was there, the hotel was probably as
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