John Lang: Wanderer of Hindoostan, Slanderer in Hindoostanee, Lawyer for The Ranee (H.B)

his book is in pursuit of Alice, whose name rhymes with ‘galluse’. That, however, is another memory, another book, waiting to germinate. John Lang (1816-1864), inebriated on John Exshaw, a cognac, eau de vie, most of his adult life, was a dogged underdog from Sydney; he spared no effort to hurt the John Company (East India Company). He lived in India after the age of 26 and was a prolific writer, journalist, and lawyer. 

 His novels were too feminist for Victorian comfort, and his white male protagonists are often described by the narrator as in love with India, in despise with England. As a journalist, he was irreverent toward the army and legal systems; modern journalists can take a lesson or two from Mr Lang. As a lawyer, John Lang learnt Persian and Urdu fast to be able to argue cases in lower courts. He fought some important cases for Indians against the Company, and even won some of them. The establishment, however, found a way to send him to jail. The Rani of Jhansi was impressed and invited him to be her lawyer.

There was a party going on at Lang’s house when he died. He said a party could not be stopped just on the account of his ill health.

Amit Ranjan

Amit Ranjan likes to wander and wonder, and as one of his friends puts it—’ponder in a funk.’ The ocean, the commotion of the city, the silence of graveyards have all beckoned him with their hauntedness. He began to see patterns and symbols in the words written on tombstones. He saw names writ on waters of the eastern shores of Australia, America and Hindustan. This hunt is the writer’s haunt, and that’s what’s led to this book. Amit undertook his undergraduate studies at St. Stephen’s College and has MA, MPhil and PhD from JNU, Delhi. He was a Visiting Fellow at UNSW, Sydney; and a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Miami—with eye to the sky, and ear to the ocean. His poetry collection, Find Me Leonard Cohen, I’m Almost Thirty, came out two years ago, and his biography of Dara Shikoh is due out soon. Amit is a lecturer of English at NCERT,