Hill Station still to be seen in Penang
I feel so sad I’ve finished these blogs. I want to know what happened to the characters under the pressure of WW2 and the changes inflicted on them by their friends, associates, surroundings. How they each reacted, what they became …
Dear friends and readers,
It’s overdue time to sadly finish my account of this sometimes sublime series, Indian Summers. Rhik Samadder said rightly of the first season, it was one of the most narratively satisfying dramas of British TV and of real interest in its depiction of the Raj, besides which, gorgeous; and from ordinary watchers on IMDB provided further rave reviews for the second, I’ll content myself with quoting “it’s a feast.”
One of the intriguing elements across the series which I’ve not mentioned thus far is many of the actors act against character; Julie Waters is a cruel hard woman, lonely, desperate (usually so humane); James Fleet an amoral sexual harasser (usually the one bullied), Art Malik a sybaritic amoral creep of a maharajah (usually austerely moral or the subaltern).
Lord Hawthorne (James Fleet) looking sinister!
Leena (Amber Rose Reevah)now gone to jail (because she protected Adam from Hawthorne’s rage when Adam burnt him for sexually harassing her) I believe would have been brought back, having been in prison and got out early.
I also loved how it ended so ironically: the white British who had been born in India leave their home (the club), but find they have no home in Britain they can or want to return to. The series is Anglo-Indian, yes about the English centrally, but seen from a very different angle, as the ruthless dangerous often harmful but finally relatively vulnerable oppressors.
Cynthia posed in her fashion show outfit captures something of this
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Indian Summers 2:6 The gift for the king
In this episode, half-way through our season, the stories come to a (literally) explosive climax. In this case it’s the information that Ralph gets from Aafrin about the bomb about to be set off during the celebration of the king’s birthday – or a jubilee. The two have a terrific quarrel when Aafrin admits he was not coerced, not originally, but they act together towards the end.
Ralph (Henry Lloyd-Jones) confronts Aafrin (Nikesh Patel)
King-emperor is so absurd as a title. Ralph sends Rowntree and his men to the tea plantation and elsewhere. They can find nothing. Naresh Banerjee (Arjun Mathur) is wandering about in a mad rage – tries to kill Sooni (Aysha Kala) but Ian McCleod (Alexander Cobb) is there and promptly tries to save her, and then chase Banerjee who is taken to jail, but cyanide is slipped into his hands and he dies before they can question him. The journalist is also following Sooni about – worried for her.
Ralph and Madeleine now Wheelan (Olivia Grant)
We watch all the characters behaving characteristically – Cynthia (Julie Walters) won’t leave the club house; Mr Dalal (Roshan Seth) scolds Alice (Jemima West) when she comes to the house in effect to try to win friends. Madeline (Olivia Grant) is doing her best to support Ralph. Mrs Raworth (Fiona Glascott) we are told has had her baby in Delhi – with Raworth (Craig Parkinson) now ever so eager to return to England and be a wonderful family man – he is the most pathetic of the characters . His wife despises him.
Banerjee has sent a small Indian boy off with his wagon and the lit bomb to blow at 4 pm. This provides the suspense of the second half of the episode. As luck would have it, the boy is just outside the compound when Raworth spots him, runs over to him, attempts to see what’s what and the bomb blows up – killing Raworth and the boy (several small Indian boys are simply blown up in this series).
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Indian Summers 2:7: The Proposal
The proposal is that in return for his support for the India Bill Ralph wants to pass in Parliament, the Maharajah (Art Malik) demands that Ralph let him go to bed with Madeline, Ralph’s wife. The whole hour is taken up with Ralph’s state of mind – on and off. It opens with his memories of his mother going to bed with Cynthia’s husband, and then ironically he is on the other side of the door by the end of the episode with Madeline and Maharajah on the other side. The maharajah’s mistress tries to goad Ralph into fucking her, and while he begins, he gives it up in disgust.
Sirene, her “real” name, something of a joke, said to be Phyllis, she is from Australia (played by the hard looking Rachel Griffiths)
Sirene rages within at this man she is mistress of who has no respect for her. Ralph is driven or needs get this position, the Viceroy, where the princely states will give up their independence because he’s in debut but also his father (he says) wanted him to have it (Viceroy) but it’s not clear if Ralph is remembering his legal father or the biological one (Cynthia’s philandering husband by whom she had no children). He is also bitter about Cynthia’s pressuring him all these years, about her manipulations. Early in the episode the maharajah goads Ralph into a game whereby they loosen a goat, tied up as a temptation to tiger and then replace the goat with a boy. The maharajah wants Ralph to use his own son, Adam (Dillon Mitra), but he demurs and uses Bhupi’s son. Yes both he and the maharajah stand there to shoot the tiger to stop it devouring the boy, but, as Bhupi (Ash Nair) says, if the boy was safe, why not use Adam? And it’s the maharajah who shoots the tiger. Bhupi is infuriated, but still obedient. Had there been more seasons eventually Bhupi would have rebelled.
Art Malik (the maharajah) — this is not from Indian Summers, but a minor role in Doctor Who Series 11 where he embodies just the type character we see him inhabit here
At the opening of the episode we see Aafrin sent away to Delhi to help with the earthquake. This is to get him out of the way after the bombing death of Raworth which Aafrin is partly responsible for. He is to make up his mind to be loyal to Ralph; he says he has but he has to reach Alice on the side. During the episode we again hear the misery of Alice on the other side of the same door (it seems) now being buggered and sadistically used by her mean vicious husband Charlie (Blake Ritson). For them the episode ends with Alice and Aafrin kissing and going off to that room, and from high Cynthia watches – rightly she loathes Charlie who needles her.
Soon after this first opening with Aafrin leaving, Sarah Raworth is found with her recently born baby living in quarters provided by Cynthia – or she’d be in miserable 3rd rate hotel. It appears that Sarah has not been told how her husband died. No one is willing to tell her Matthew (Connor McCrory) is finally coming home (India is home here) but when he does she at first instinctively (this is what she is) lies, tries to hide his father is dead. But the Sumitra (Anitha Abdul Hamid) who he clearly loves more and loves him is dressed in white mourning and manages to convey his father is dead. He demands how and now Sarah says she has no idea. We see that Matthew like his father is a truth teller, decent to the Indians, and will not pretend to the hypocrisies of this Raj.
We can see the young lover paradigm here between Sooni and Naseem Ali Khan (Tanmay Dhanania) — they are a contrast to the Maharajah and Sirene and also Ralph and Madeleine
Sooni is being pressured by her mother to marry another Pashi (with big eyebrows). This is a third new semi-comic substory for this episode. He is shown to be decent but what he wants is an obedient wife whose life is spent having children and serving him. Aafrin is not there to help her fend off the mother (Lilette Dubey). She visits the tea plantation and Ian manages to ask her to be his wife. She demurs and says she needs time to think about it. She goes to the newspaper journalist, Naseem Ali Khan , who seems to be the only person to take her politics truly seriously. Aafrin does but he does not see politics the way she does and tries not to confide in her, and Khan and Sooni go off to a gathering where Ghandi is coming to speak. A huge crowd. During their time together Naseem tells her he loves her, and she clearly responds to him …. She is the closest we have to a traditional heroine, including the many suitors. And if the proposal to Ralph is probably the one the title refers to, she has 3 proposals in this episode.
The way the details are brought in make me feel there is a novel or memoir Rutman was using – it would help explain many details outside the story line. I so yearn to know what happened to these characters’ stories as the years go by. That is what was intended.
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Indian Summers 2:8: The Birthday Party
You can glimpse the rocking horse being brought in
In this episode I find matter put before us which I both background and s a preparation for what’s to come. It’s a bit clunky (the way in the first season the film-makers did not manage to tell us who was who quickly enough). Perhaps this shows they knew they were not going to be renewed … or the lack of direct thrust is part of why they lost audience ….
For example, around the time Sooni rejects Ian McCleod, he has noticed (because he’s paying so much attention to her) that Bhupi behaves strangely around the river where Jaya was drowned. We realize Bhupi is led to go there regularly because he feels Jaya’s ghost is luring him there and he then re-enacts how he drove her into the river and thus she drowned. He didn’t quite himself kill her but of course he was responsible. Ian knows that’s where Jaya died because he has not forgotten Ramu Sood. He tries to grab Bhupi who flees. Well after rejection from Sooni, in town now (like his Scots uncle) Ian is drinking heavily and sees Bhupi from far, chases him down and demands to know who he is and whose servant Bhupi at first tries to avoid telling but then he’s Bhupinder and works for Ralph Whelan.
I suggest in the next season Ian would have brought this information out, wanted an article written by Khan, and the injustice of the murder of Ramu Sood come home to hurt the WW2 destruction of the Raj further.
Charlie Havistock (Blake Ritson) — this is very much against type (Ritson is usually sensitive and kind)
Things between Alice and Charlie come to a head – she cannot stand him, he loves to humiliate her and in front of others refuses to give her the money or permission to buy their son a wooden bike of some sort. She persuades Aafrin, home from Delhi, they must run away. Cynthia gets them secret tickets Alice couldn’t manage.
But on that night Charlie (ever following her) discovers they are gone within minutes and then breaks Sumitra’s hands (he has been paying for information and she has instead lied to him) and hurt Bhupi’s son whom Ralph was willing to use as a target to please the maharajah theirs. We see the anguished pain Charlie puts her through and after Charlie has raged into the room the pair thought they were safe in and waiting for a rickshaw (bad idea of Alice’s), and dragged Alice and his son away, We see Bhupi and Sumitra (Bhupi’s wife) commiserating. Bhupi is gradually having enough.
I suggest in the third season, maybe another 2-3 years on Bhupi and his wife would be angry revolutionary hindus. Like Aafrin has been half-heartedly. Oh they did have the birthday party, Charlie did himself buy the bike for the boy, and this was part of why the scheme to run away fails. There is a delay over getting the party started.
The plan was Aafrin would flee to Australia with Alice. Not such a crazy idea had they gotten to the boat to Bombay and then gotten onto another boat This is the one kind of thing Alice has dared – once before. But for Aafrin that means leaving his family who are economically dependent on him. Not only do they loathe the idea of an English daughter-in-law (the father tried to bully her away) but they need the income. He leaves but feels terrible. Sooni is also rebelling when she says she is going to marry the journalist, Khan: he is a Muslim and her mother hates. How can you be happy if you leave us broken-hearted asks the father. Well you shouldn’t be is not a strong enough answer.
Sooni and her and Aafrin’s father, Darius Dalal (Rosh Sethan) hugging — this is earlier and shows their affection for one another
Now Matthew Raworth’s son is home, he will not allow the hypocritical Sarah to lie and she keeps having to run away from him or shout him down. She can successfully half-lie about her relationship to her late husband, but she cannot get him to say he liked the English. He hated the school and does not want to go back. He is another figure who would have been central in season 3.
Cynthia losing out
Last there’s Cynthia insisting on pulling down a Indian flag put over the Club. Ralph cannot defend Alice because Charlie bankrolls him through influence in the bank and threatens to withhold approval. Ralph badly in debt and says he will not sell Chotipool (the house). Ralph’s bill fell on its face; no prince went for it even the man Ralph gave his wife to. Madeline says this prince hated you. And now it seems Cynthia is badly in debt too — she had hoped for Ralph to get that position so she could manipulate it into money for herself.
And then a reconciling wedding party to give hope for the future and good feeling as an ending: Sooni tells Aafrin they will be the pioneers of this new amalgam; we
see her dancing with her husband, Naseem Khan, and from Aafrin’s point of view Ian and Alice talking, moving as if to dance
They intermingle Indian (Muslim, Parsi) and English and Scottish in the closing wedding festival. I enjoyed this moment too.
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For Indian Summers Episode 9, Winner Takes All; and Episode 10: Leaving Home (ironic title) click (in the comments)
Making a little England … what the English tried to do
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
Indian Summers 2:9: Winner Take All
I admit I have been putting off re-watching this penultimate episode because I found the depiction of the sadistic husband, Charlie’s revenge and Alice’s capitulation too painful. Dreading something sometimes makes it larger than it is, and the episode has several other threads, all of which, though, are heading us towards closure for this season and more hints for the season to come (Rutman is still writing as if he needs closure for the year and maybe the series, and yet is putting down situations to be developed in the next).
So the framing device is Charlie’s locking Alice in her room, burning her “pretty” things, giving his son a nervous nosebleed; then threatening to put Alice in an asylum (did he really have that power still in the 1930s), and going about (successfully, or enough) to gather evidence to see that Aafrin is hanged. He goes about showing Aafrin’s photo and asking if anyone has seen him, especially with (another photo) Naseem Bannerjee. Finally he finds a woman on McCleod’s tea plantation who lies for bribes.
This enough after Ralph’s initial infuriated outburst against Aafrin as a traitor when he learns of Alice and Aafrin’s 3 year affair, to hang Aafrin. McLeod tries to intervene, dragging the woman away, and Ralph, having calmed down much later, calls after Rowntree that he does not want any charges mounted (lots of people might come forward who want bribes), but it’s clear that he has the excuse “it’s out of my hands”).
Over the course of the hour, Aafrin’s father, Darius Dalal, finds the note Aafrin has fled with Alice to Australia, then Sooni comes to say, no, he is here, but remains ambiguous where here is, and in the scene which is so humiliating Alice agrees to be obedient, a sex slave (we have learned Charlie likes cruel buggery), go back to England and in return no asylum and Charlie will not go to testify (which he was going to do — to perjure himself).
Just like this from insulting him, Rowntree becomes all courtesy, Aafrin is released, he goes to Alice to be told it’s over in a cold way, walks away and his sister is there, to bring him home.
Other large story: Ralph does not get Viceroy; it is given to Earl of Linlithgow, said to be marvelous over nuitrition — of course he’s rich, well connected, related to the king. All for nothing says Madeline When a surrogate arrives, Earl Thompson, she passes a flirtation with him, and we see in the next season she is going herself to be unfaithful to Ralph. He at one point refers to a great love his life and he means Jaya when Alice says her love is Aafrin.
We are to expect already felt changes of all sorts. Ronnie Keane already changing his character; we see Sarah mooning after him (she felt nothing for her good husband, Raworth, he was throwing his life away to stay with him and not defend Leena, now in prison for 9 years).
The present surrogate, Lord Wilmington is suddenly more humanized, comforts Ralph some.
Now another thread building: McCleod tells Wilmington (Patrick Malahide) that Ralph knew that his servant murdered Jaya and let Ramu Sood die. He, McCleod, is not giving up. We see him question Ralphs son, Adam – who tells him Jaya was his mother and McCleod suspects Ralph is the father Why Adam is living with Ralph’s family.
Cynthia losing ground – with Ralph after her attempt to help Aafrin and Alice to run away (for her reasons and his career, she thinks) — with the people in the club. More humanized.
Sooni our romantic heroine is being pressured by her mother to marry the Parsi her mother picked. She is now seemingly pretending to go along, but at the same time talks all the time with Khan, the Muslim reporter who loves her and she loves
It is such a shame there was not at least a third season — three years later into the WW2 early years. What a comparison it would have made with Jewel in the Crown.
E.M.
Indian Summers 2:10 Leaving Home
Many of the titles of the episodes this season are ironic. This episode wraps up with a conclusive act three threads, while leaving yet more possibilities for the apparently 3 further seasons they had hoped for (Patrick Malahide speaks of 50 hours of TV).
Two story threads for this episode end more or less happily. Charlie is removing Alice but in the most arrogant and mean of ways possible, taking his time, ignoring what is happening in India for real — another planted bomb exploded killing a young Muslim boy and groups of Muslim men are killing Hindus. Charlie and Alice pass by a station where violence has erupted; he acts the worst way possible and is beaten to death outside the locked car.
Aafrin has showed himself alertly aware of these riots: asked to join the new gov’t as long as he goes along with the latest lie (the Brits are working for Indian independence when Indians are “ready” for it), he bursts out against this India act & tells of the riots. He awakens Ralph the morning Charlie and Alice are half-way to Delhi, he, Ralph and Adam (Ralph’s son) drive after and get there just in time for Aafrin to save Alice and her boy, Percy, with Adam standing by with a loaded rifle he shoots twice.
With Charlie dead, Aafrin and Alice and Percy return to their rented room, and are last seen at Sooni and Naseem Khan’s wedding, dancing. Aafrin will defy his parent as Sooni is doing.
The other thread is the success of Sooni’s defiance, after her attempts to persuade her parents to approve fail. She converts and marries Khan. Painful family scenes but we see Darius was willing to go to the festivities and because his wife won’t doesn’t. He is last seen praying for the young couple, whom McCleod also now accepts.
The vindication of Sood may be coming eventually (but it will take more decades): at least, though with the auctioning off of the club (Ralph’s debts have overwhelmed him and now Cynthia) to the Sood family they now have a lever of power. We see Ian at the wedding dance (see below), part of the group.
Ralph has proudly tendered his resignation to the new private secretary (whom Madeleine dances sexily with) of the new coming viceroy but this man withholds making it official. Madeleine says he has 3 months holiday — they could go to Chicago, start over again, but like Alice he regards India as his home.
Last scene at Chotipool: Cynthia gets everyone — including Bhupinder and his wife, to smash some symbolic vases and pictures – they are throwing off the old Raj and facing a new one to come where they will not have the power, wealth or prestige they had. Willingden is told what Ralph was guilty of (allowing or encouraging Bhupi to drown Jaya).
Petty bad people carry on: Sarah is now making up with Ronnie Keane (Rick Warden) who wouldn’t recognize a principle if you bothered to explain it: the nasty-hearted woman is to him sexy and he is mediocre as ever. We are reminded of the Indian people who have been sacrificed (two women, one man deemed dangerous) at various moments (like Willingden being told).
And then all together for the wedding dance, with us having seen Darius praying for his daughter at his temple
To me for an Anglo film this is the best most candid and fairest I’ve ever watched. I dream someone will continue it again with new actors …. I learned a lot from watching it carefully twice over
Ellen
I’m glad you enjoyed the series, Ellen. I almost didn’t watch it but found myself captivated by it once I began. It does seem like much more was intended. Perhaps someday the writer will reveal the original plans. I have seen this done with other TV shows where plans for another season were made but the show was never filmed, but the outline of episodes was presented at a conference later. Perhaps someday the series will be remade and expanded.
Tyler Tichelaar
It’s really not too late. Only 6 years have passed and it could resume in 1942. Two obstacles: the actors would have taken other jobs. Not insuperable, hire others. But it would also take a vocal organized group campaign. Still we may hope because many of the recaps are there, and WETA has kept up a full site about the two seasons.