An Indian Attachment

by Sarah Lloyd

"Part travel book, part love story, An Indian Attachment tells of the two years Sarah spent in rural India, in love with a placid, beautiful, opium-addicted Sikh." Living first in a remote mud-built Punjabi village, they later moved to be part of the impoverished community of a dubious holy-man, where they lived in a minute, windowless, brick hut on around fifty pence a day. No other outsider has written so convincingly about life as the vast majoirty of Indian know it.

Genres: Travel, India

244 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Rhonda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I realize I am in the minority with a 2 star rating. I wanted to like this book - really, I did. I did very much enjoy learning about Sikhs and India in general; however, I found myself constantly annoyed by the author's behavior.

Possible spoilers ahead:

Sarah knows very early on that she will not marry this young Sikh, but she lives with him and carries on so with him, misleading him. The families get involved, the friends. They were all misled. While I didn't care for that, I was dumbfounded that the author, an educated, independent woman from the west, would not only tolerate a man physically abusing her but she defended and accepted it. Wow! She also defends his opium habit, but, in fairness, she halfheartedly attempts to get him off the drug.

I don't know. Like I said, I liked the peek into rural Indian life, but the lack of integrity of the characters drove me nuts. Who do you root for in a book on unlikeable people?

[Anusya Das · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have conflicted feelings about this book. On one hand, I appreciate Sarah Lloyd’s blunt honesty. She doesn’t try to paint a flowery picture of her time in India. The book reads like a raw, personal journal where she records her day-to-day life without trying to impress anyone. She is clear from the start that she wasn't looking for a lifelong commitment or a husband. She just fell in love with a person and a culture and decided to see where it went. That level of transparency is rare and it is the only reason I am giving this a three instead of a two.However, as an Indian, the core of this book is very difficult to stomach. It feels like a classic case of "poverty tourism." Lloyd comes from an individualistic Western society and becomes enamored with the "simplicity" and community of rural India. But she fell in love with a concept, not a reality. For her, living in a village was a path to self-discovery or a spiritual experiment. For the people she lived with, that poverty isn't an experience or a phase. It is a life sentence.The most frustrating part is the power dynamic. Throughout the book, she always had her British passport in her back pocket. The moment things got too difficult or the "experience" lost its shine, she had the luxury of hopping on a plane back to a comfortable life. The people she left behind had no such escape. They were born into that struggle and they will die in it.The ending felt particularly patronizing. She admits she chose to leave but then claims that the man she left will be in love with her for the rest of his life. It feels incredibly self-centered to treat someone’s real, lived struggle as a backdrop for your own personal growth and then leave them hanging high and dry.While I respect that she put her actual thoughts on paper without sugarcoating them, I can’t ignore the privilege that drips from every page. What she calls an "attachment" felt more like a temporary visit to a museum of human suffering where she could look at the exhibits, stay for a while, and then walk out the exit whenever she pleased.

[Kristi Duarte · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are things I like about this book: the peek into the lives of rural people in India (in particular the Sikhs), their rules, behaviors, living standards. Then there are things that I really didn't like. First of all, the way the book is written is painfully boring. It lists item after item after item.

But the one thing I really disliked is that the author, Sarah, completely, selfishly takes advantage of this Sikh man, Jungli, who is in love with her. She disrespects both him and his culture when goes to live with him in his village, ignoring all the cultural norms of his people. And the reason she does this, is to gather information for this book.

[Yvonne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read about 20+ years ago, I can remember I somehow enjoyed it for this female report of a remote (at least for me) culture/part of the world she took a place in herself. Three stars for that.
Today I would not buy or recommend it to anyone....

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that this was an amazing book.