BUGLES AND A TIGER (REISSUES)

For someone who is fascinated with history and events from days long gone by...this book was a goldmine of information."History is written by the victors"...so goes the saying...and almost always you never get to know the "full picture".This book gives a very candid perspective from someone who actually found the battles...and lived to tell the tale!I could connect the dots to many of my own real world experiences from travels and meetings over the years...in the very same places this book describes and with the very same people!!Excellent read. Highly, highly recommended!

Unputdownable narrative by John Masters. Enchanting, captivating and flowing essay of life of Gorkhas and how a native tribe can influence a man from entirely different culture. A must read.

So engrossing that one could not stop till it ends.. Wonderful description of Bakloh hills..

I bought this copy to update the pocketbook I inherited from my father. This and "The Road Past Mandalay" were two of his favorites, and I was captivated as well. It was a gateway to Masters' novels, my favorite being "The Lotus and the Wind."

Excellent. I found it to be an interesting, informative, and often an entertaining read. John Masters gives a brief biography of himself and his background prior to going to the Royal Military College Sandhurst. He then gives a brief description of his life as a Gentleman Cadet, and how he came to join the Gurkhas. The rest of the book is about his life as a junior officer in the Gurkhas up until the outbreak of World War II.There are three main points of possible interest to the reader. (i) It would appear that there was always a significant amount of fighting on what is today the Pakistan - Afganistan border, which was then called the North West Frontier, and how British India kept the peace there, militarily.(ii) The author's religious views. In 1935-1939 it is Christian with a significant dose of tolerance, maybe even interest, in the religion of his Gurkhas - basically Hinduism.(iii) Sex. It would seem that marriage was less than universal. The question then is: How did the unmarried ones in the British Indian Army get any? Pages 139 to 146 cover the topic in detail, and there are little bits throughout the book. In essence, they had affairs or went to brothels. Some did, of course, marry, and John Masters tells us who they married (lower caste / class Indians) and what happened to their offspring (ended up working as Anglo-Indians on the railways). For most of the time the British were in India there was a shortage of white women.The solution in the Dutch East Indies was the concubine. See in particular De njai: het concubinaat in Nederlands-Indie by Reggie Baay. The book is in Dutch. In essence, a local girl would be the concubine of the soldier. When the soldier moved elsewhere, the concubine would either follow him or go to a new soldier or go back to her village with the children. Sometimes the concubine would marry the soldier and they would settle down in the East Indies, or, if the soldier was from Holland / The Netherlands, and the soldier was going back home, if she converted to Christianity should could go with him.In both British India and the Dutch East Indies well meant interventions by politicians and people back home would result in an increase in venereal disease. The men were not going to stop having sex, and there was always going to be some women willing to give it to them. In essence the solution in the Dutch East Indies was to have the men in a monogamous relationship more or less from Day One, whilst the solution in British India was to check the women in the brothels for Sexually Transmitted Diseases on a regular basis. Take your pick on which solution is the most acceptable to your sensibilities. Just don't expect everybody to abstain forever from having sex, because, as John Masters points out in Bugles and a Tiger, My life in the Gurkhas, that is not going to happen.The author does, briefly, mention the independence movement in India at that time in the run-up to World War II, but the impression I get is that it barely impinged on life in the military, and, by extension, on the general population of India.This book is a snap-shot of life in British India in the run-up to World War II, written by a person who was there at the time, and, as such, is an historical record of interest to a multitude of people in Britain, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.As an anecdotal aside I did myself meet the great man himself when I was a young boy. John Masters says in his book that he likes mountains, and it was in the mountains of northern Spain that I met him. He was about a dozen years older than my Dad, but I remember John Masters organising a day-long walk for a small group of people which included my father. To some extent the walk itself was a first for my Dad, (who did a lot of walking in his capacity as a field geologist, though never solely to paraphrase George Mallory "Because it is there"), which says a lot about the powers of persuasion and leadeship ability of John Masters. I also remember that John Masters in effect walked my Dad into the ground that day, which says a lot for his physical fitness. My Dad was a chunk younger and not at all physically unfit himself, so walking him into the ground was quite a feat.

I really enjoyed this glimpse into the lost work of the British Raj in India. Highly recommended.

Very good

This book is simply wonderful from start to finish. It paints a picture of life in the remote postings of Empire shortly before they were lost to time following the war. While many seek to erase that past this book shows a mutual respect and admiration that they would fail to comprehend.This book and it’s sequel The Road to Mandalay are a must have for students of history or amateur buffs alike.