Mistaken Identity - Sahgal Nayantara

Crazy about Mistaken Identity. I think it's absolutely brilliant --Harold Pinter the year is 1929, India is torn by strikes, and the British Raj is close to panic: Bhushan Singh, the purposeless son of a minor raja is charged with treason and thrown into jail. As the months awaiting trial stretch into years, the apolitical Bhushan entertains his communist cellmates with tales of his World: of his veiled mother; of his very modern parsee girlfriend; of the american flapper who taught him the turkey trot; of his forbidden boyhood affair which ignited two murderous hindu-muslim riots and led to his banishment abroad. A complex work, mistaken identity is at once a family saga, a romance and a richly nuanced historical novel. Mistaken Identity has leapt instantly into the category of one of my favourite books. I cannot remember when I was so moved, fascinated entertained and finally moved again. -Antonia Frazer