in the title immediately signals that we are returning to another time: one that was not so long ago, but is now as antiquated as its orthography. An era that was tragic, perhaps, in its essence, but comic in its particulars; a time of unspeakable wealth and inconceivable poverty, continual cultural misunderstandings, unfettered whimsy, and cruelties large and small: the age of the British Raj and the Indian princes. The Raj was born in the wake of the 1857 Sepoy Revolt against the Honourable East India Company, which had controlled much of the subcontinent for a hundred years. Realizing that the Company could no longer protect British interests, the British government, with some reluctance, intervened. Slightly more than half of the country fell under the direct administration of the Crown, but the rest of the land was divided into 562 states, from tiny principalities to kingdoms as large as the British Isles themselves. These states enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy in their internal affairs, but all had to pledge not to pursue independent courses of foreign policy.
