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Requiem for an old Sahib

An old India hand, Major Peter (PJO) Taylor is no more. Read on with R.V. SMITH to know about this war veteran-turned-journalist

Like Colonel Philip Meadows Taylor, who wrote his masterpiece on the thugs, based on the confessions of Ameer Ali, the greatest strangler of all times, with the blood of nearly 900 unwary travellers on his hands, Major Peter (PJO) Taylor was also an old India hand, though he belonged to the 20th Century. Coming to India in 1943, he joined the Maratha Light Infantry and was soon engaged on the Eastern Front of World War II, where the British Indian Army was fighting the Japanese. He also served in Italy and Japan.

Now news has come from East Sussex that the war veteran, ex-colonial officer, schoolteacher and then journalist passed away after a short illness in the early hours of February 27. He used to write a popular column every Sunday for nearly 20 years in a local newspaper, and he never got tired of writing on things Indian. Taylor, who did his M.A. from Oxford, visited Delhi almost every year as also places like Bareilly, Kanpur, Lucknow and Kolkata. He would also go to the hill stations and re-live old times, where he spoke the Urdu of pre-partition years.

Handsome man

One remembers that in the late 1980s, Taylor, a still handsome man, approached Father, who introduced him to the Ink World in the Capital. After that there was no looking back for him. Taylor liked to stay in old hotels like Maidens and Imperial, where he found an ambience which suited him more. This was an interest he shared with the Novelist John Masters (also a former British Indian Army Officer).

Major Taylor would go looking for old haunts, like the Pande Hunt and other 1857 landmarks on the Ridge, since he was a great expert on the history of the Mutiny. His chronicles of the Mutiny found a wide readership and he never stopped adding to his memories.

The Flagstaff Tower, near the old Subzi Mandi, was his focus of attention one full afternoon. After that it was Kingsway Camp and Kashmere Gate, where he spent a full day looking up Col. Skinner's ruined house in Nicholson Road, and the St. James Church. The third day was spent in Delhi Cantonment, where he visited the colonial bungalows and spoke to retired khidmatgars, khansamas and gardeners, along of course with old army officers. Incidentally, one of his friends in Delhi was Lt. General Menezes, with whom he liked to spend a lot of time and share past experiences.

In Kanpur and Lucknow too the Mutiny sites excited his interest.He would visit the scenes of 1857 events - the Sati-Chaura, the Residency, the well which carried the controversial inscription: "Sacred to the memory of British officers and men, and a large number of Christian women and children who ware massacred here by the orders of one Nana Saheb of Betoor".

Taylor's sympathies, however were not confined to his own kind. He was equally agonised by the atrocities perpetrated by the Company Sarkar after the Great Revolt was crushed. He regretted the slaughter of innocent white women and children just as much as he deplored the cruel deaths of Indian men, women (some of them pregnant) and children who were impaled on spears and swords.

Taylor would go back to England and follow up his findings with material available in the British Library, where he used to spend most of his time, and where he found information on such diverse topics like the hanging of the Nawab of Ferozepore, Shamsuddin Khan, for alleged complicity in the murder of William Fraser, the British Resident, in 1835, and Mirza Galib's love for gambling (which landed him in jail for some time) and a dark courtesan of Chawri Bazar, who never tired of sex - teasing the aging poet.

Taylor's knowledge of Indian History was amazing and he did not stop at consulting old tomes but in researching himself and keeping up with the latest world of modern historiographers.Besides his Mutiny Chronicles, Taylor also wrote "A Star Shall Fall", "Spice of Life" and "A Sahib Remembers". He was planning to bring out another book when Father Time overtook him before his 83rd birthday. Major Taylor would sure rank among the distinguished British Officers who fell in love with this country and not only wrote about it but also returned to it again and again as though to draw inspiration from the springs of nostalgia.

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