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Tales from the Puffugees
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Jaspar Utley’s latest book is a cheery romp through incidents that peppered his stint here
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Photo: S.R. Raghunathan
Remembering Chennai Utley at the launch
It’s ‘Eggs, Beans and Crumpets’ in a world of Omelettes, Rajma and Samosas.
Jaspar Utley’s latest book, Tales of the Puffugees was recently launched at Landmark, in the presence of the author. Reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse, in spirit if not in context, the book is a cheery, simple romp through stories and incidents that peppered Utley’s stint in India, particularly Chennai, with the British Council.
So while Wodehouse had Aunt Agatha, “who eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin,” Utley’s book stars Mrs. Mukerjee, “whose nose, it was said, could crack open coconuts.” A tough, determined do-gooder, Mrs. Mukerjee, “whose campaign against litter in the streets… is even now spoken of with hushed voices by the banana and peanut vendors of the neighbourhood,” clashes constantly with the General, “a grizzled old survivor of two armies and three wars” and the wise old leader of the ‘Puffugees.’
Tales from the Puffugees, begins when Mrs. Mukerjee, wife of the lily-livered president of an old very-British club, takes on an obstinate group of smokers, who are . banished to a distant verandah. A string of ludicrous little stories then unfold, involving various eccentric characters.
Since Utley worked for the British Council for over 30 years in eight countries, and his final posting was in South India as director, the voice he uses to tell the stories is a mix of cultures: dry British humour meets quirky Indian expression. Inevitably, the voice does suffer an identity crisis of sorts. Here, after all, is a Britisher telling an Indian story about westernised Indians in an old-fashioned English club. (Yes, it took a few minutes for me to sort out that sentence too.) So there are characters like Squiffy and Buffy Singh, who talk of things like that “second hand bookshop Johnny on Mount Road.”
At Landmark, P.C. Ramakrishna of the Madras Players, read sections of the book, to the evident delight of the constantly guffawing audience. From Karthik the muddled wannabe hotelier, who accidentally pulled off a minister’s pants revealing “a pair of none-too-clean scarlet underpants and a strikingly hairy pair of legs,” to Ambassador’s wife who was known to exit through windows ‘when she couldn’t be bothered to fight her way through a scrum of chatty cocktail drinkers,” Utley’s characters seem far removed from reality.
“Of course they’re completely true,” Utley says breaking into a smile. “More or less.” He adds, “However, I did know a French ambassador’s wife who was dotty and did climb through windows.”
He adds that many of this stories are based in Chennai as he was posted here for six years. “As I go about the city I see many mini dramas unfolding,” he says. “These stories are for the people of Chennai, to thank them for all the fun and good living I had here.”
SHONALI MUTHALALY
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