About halfway through this densely printed tome, comes the story of Mandu Firangi—a possibly foreign painter at the Mughal court in Fatehpur Sikri, though in reality of entirely unknown provenance—who may or may not have inserted Western pictorial elements into an illustrated version of the Ramayana. Based on no evidence whatsoever, professor Harris bravely attempts to recreate the artist who collaborated with both Muslim and Hindu miniature painters on a grandiose edition of the great Indian epic in Persian, commissioned by Emperor Akbar himself. In the process, we do get a fascinating glimpse into the Mughal painting workshops and their work culture.
Harris speculates at some length whether Mandu could be the British painter James Story, a travel companion of the famous Ralph Fitch who, in the 1590s, published the first Indian travelogue written by an Englishman. (Fitch’s trip is even referenced in passing by Shakespeare in Macbeth.) Shortly after disembarking, Fitch and his companions were arrested as spies by the Portuguese in Goa. Fitch escaped and did go to Fatehpur Sikri to meet Akbar, but all evidence suggests that Story never left Goa. So he was definitely not Mandu.
The story of Mandu Firangi is, essentially, that there is no story. This learned book features many such wild goose chases and is full of ‘it is likely’, ‘it is tempting to imagine’, ‘must have been’ and ‘subjunctive’. Harris ties himself into knots theorizing and conjecturing to make up for the lack of source material—such as when he tries to determine whether the British maverick Jesuit missionary Thomas Stephens met the Catholic martyr Edmund Campion at Oxford in the 1560s. Eventually the author admits there is no solid evidence that Stephens even went to Oxford, before going on to India to write a Christian epic in Marathi. At that point I felt like I should rather reread Amitav Ghosh’s brilliant In an Antique Land in which the author employed similar historical speculation but oh so fruitfully.
But it is fun reading at other times. The characters consist of a deluge of offbeat adventurers who insinuated themselves into the fabric of Indian history (mostly in a very minor capacity, but nevertheless) including a Portuguese physician who is a national hero in his home country but here was the herb-collecting mango-addicted family doctor to the sultan of Ahmadnagar; a very spaced-out Chinese torture expert settled in Kerala who fought against Portuguese colonization (and was executed by them); the eccentric walker Thomas Coryate who is far better documented than most thanks to his numerous letters home; and even a few firangi women who lived in Mughal harems.
The operative word, as suggested in the subtitle, is ‘became’. Professor Harris espouses a convoluted pet theory involving the human body—how people not so much adapt to new climes but partially turn into other people. It is a modification of the old adage ‘you are what you eat’, and to somewhat simplify Harris’ elaborate arguments, the ramification advanced is that anyone who eats enough curry naturally becomes Indian. Of course, the process involves more than curry; it is also about reading Indian literature, and picking up an Indian vocabulary or painting styles. As proof, Harris offers some lengthy descriptions of his own body. Admittedly, our environment shapes us to some extent, but the present reviewer, having spent nearly 25 years in India, and eaten countless masala dosas, is still waiting to turn into a proper South Indian gentleman.
Nevertheless, The First Firangis does present us with terrific anecdotes and piquant details. Did you for example know that the yellow pigment called peori in Mughal miniature paintings was ‘derived from the urine of a cow fed mangoes for a week’? This is the kind of rare information that professor Harris rattles off page after page, leading one to realize how staggering his research has been.
But impeccably researched and eloquent though the book may be, reading it is oftentimes like travelling with a verbose tour guide who knows his stuff in theory but constantly leads you down the wrong way. You must backtrack repeatedly to try out a new path. I’m sure that those of you who have done a lot of travelling yourselves will appreciate what I mean.
So if you really want to see the story of these long-forgotten travellers come alive, then this may not quite be the right book for you. On the other hand, it’s handy for anybody who wishes to write historical romances, full as it is of unusual figures who could be readily made into heroes and heroines of fictional works. Novels that, I’m sure, could ‘tease out’ much more from these hidden stories.