Since I started this blog, I have come across an astonishingly large number of “British Raj” romances. A few of these deal with “inter-racial” romances which were generally taboo subject matter. One of these is Lilamani. Apart from it being an Empire sort of project of the East and West, will they ever meet, how should they meet etc. kind it also has a lot of descriptions of sarees. However Ms Diver seems to be as harsh as Tagore on girls who were too “Westernised” as the book extract shows.

Lilamani on the other hand knows how to dress well (per the author) and here on the book cover she has a cute little blouse and a pallu neatly pinned to hair.

The novel is at the link below:

http://archive.org/details/lilamanistudyinp00diveiala