Santha Rama Rau
Encyclopedia
Santha Rama Rau (24 January 1923 – 21 April 2009) was an Indian American
travel writer.
Her father, Sir Benegal Rama Rau
, was an India
n diplomat and ambassador. Her mother was Dhanvanthi Rama Rau
, a leader in the Indian women's rights movement who was the International President of Planned Parenthood
.
As a young girl, Rama Rau lived in an India under British
rule. When she was six, she accompanied her father's political trip to England
. There she was educated at St. Paul's School for Girls, and graduated in 1939. After short traveling through South Africa, she returned to India to discover a different place than she remembered. She applied to Wellesley College, Wellesley
, Massachusetts
, in the United States
, and was the first Indian student to be accepted there. She graduated with honors in 1944. Shortly afterward, she published her first book Home to India.
When India won its independence in 1947, Rama Rau's father was appointed as his nation's first ambassador
to Japan
. While in Tokyo
, Japan, she met her future husband, an American
, Faubion Bowers
. After extensive traveling through Asia and a bit of Africa and Europe, the couple settled in New York City
, New York
.Rama Rau became an instructor in the English faculty of Sarah Lawrence College
, Bronxville
, New York, in 1971, also working as a freelance writer.
Rau is the author of Home to India, East of Home, This is India, Remember the House (a novel), My Russian Journey, Gifts of Passage, The Adventuress, (a novel), View to the Southeast, and An Inheritance, as well as co-author (with Gayatri Devi
) of A Princess Remembers: the memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur.
She adapted the novel A Passage to India
, with author E. M. Forster
’s approval, for the theatre
. The play was produced for the Oxford Playhouse, Oxford
, United Kingdom
, moved to the West End
in London
, United Kingdom, in 1960 for 261 performances, and then on to Broadway
in New York City for 109 showings commencing in January 1962. It was adapted by John Maynard
and directed by Waris Hussein
for television
by the BBC
in 1965. In 1984 the play was adapted for film
by director David Lean
.
Her short story, "By Any Other Name", is one of the essays in Gifts of Passage. It is in the Norton Anthology of English Literature and is widely studied.
She married Faubion Bowers in 1951 and had one son, Jai Peter Bowers in 1952. The couple divorced in 1966. In 1970, Rama Rau married Gurdon B. Wattles, and had no children. Faubion Bowers died in November 1999 and is survived by his son, Jai. Jai is currently living in Scottsdale
, Arizona
, with his wife, Deborah Bowers, and has a daughter, Whitney Bowers. Jai also has two stepchildren, Morgan and Ross Mandeville.
Rau wrote a short memoir called "By Any Other Name", as mentioned above. She, 5 and a half, and her 8-year-old sister Premila briefly attended an Anglo-Indian School where the teacher anglicized their names. Santha's name was changed to Cynthia and her sister's was changed to Pamela. The condescending environment in which they worked and played was not fit. When confronted with the additional indignity of being told by the teacher that "Indians cheat", her older sister came immediately to her little sister's classroom and they walked home, never to return to that school.
Indian American
Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestral roots lie in India. The U.S. Census Bureau popularized the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Indigenous peoples of the Americas who are commonly referred to as American Indians.-The term: Indian:...
travel writer.
Her father, Sir Benegal Rama Rau
Benegal Rama Rau
Sir Benegal Rama Rau CIE was the fourth Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1 July 1949 to 14 January 1957. He was educated at Presidency College, Madras, and at Kings College, Cambridge. He was knighted in 1936. He was a member of the Indian Civil Service...
, was an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n diplomat and ambassador. Her mother was Dhanvanthi Rama Rau
Dhanvanthi Rama Rau
Dhanvanthi Handoo Rama Rau was founder and president of the Family Planning Association of India. She was a Kashmiri, born and brought up in Hubli, and later moved to Madras to join Presidency College. She served as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation...
, a leader in the Indian women's rights movement who was the International President of Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. The...
.
As a young girl, Rama Rau lived in an India under British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
rule. When she was six, she accompanied her father's political trip to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. There she was educated at St. Paul's School for Girls, and graduated in 1939. After short traveling through South Africa, she returned to India to discover a different place than she remembered. She applied to Wellesley College, Wellesley
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of Greater Boston. The population was 27,982 at the time of the 2010 census.It is best known as the home of Wellesley College and Babson College...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and was the first Indian student to be accepted there. She graduated with honors in 1944. Shortly afterward, she published her first book Home to India.
When India won its independence in 1947, Rama Rau's father was appointed as his nation's first ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. While in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan, she met her future husband, an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Faubion Bowers
Faubion Bowers
Faubion Bowers was General Douglas MacArthur's personal Japanese language interpreter and aide-de-camp during the Allied Occupation of Japan. He also was a noted academic in the area of Asian Studies.-Biography:...
. After extensive traveling through Asia and a bit of Africa and Europe, the couple settled in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.Rama Rau became an instructor in the English faculty of Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
, Bronxville
Bronxville, New York
Bronxville is an affluent village within the town of Eastchester, New York, in the United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately north of midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County. At the 2010 census, Bronxville had a population of 6,323...
, New York, in 1971, also working as a freelance writer.
Rau is the author of Home to India, East of Home, This is India, Remember the House (a novel), My Russian Journey, Gifts of Passage, The Adventuress, (a novel), View to the Southeast, and An Inheritance, as well as co-author (with Gayatri Devi
Gayatri Devi
Gayatri Devi , often styled as Maharani Gayatri Devi, Rajmata of Jaipur, was born as Princess Gayatri Devi of Cooch Behar...
) of A Princess Remembers: the memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur.
She adapted the novel A Passage to India
A Passage to India
A Passage to India is a novel by E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of English literature by the Modern Library and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Time...
, with author E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
’s approval, for the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
. The play was produced for the Oxford Playhouse, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, moved to the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, United Kingdom, in 1960 for 261 performances, and then on to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in New York City for 109 showings commencing in January 1962. It was adapted by John Maynard
John Maynard
John Maynard was an American lawyer and politician from New York.-Life:...
and directed by Waris Hussein
Waris Hussein
Waris Hussein is a British-Indian television director and film director best known for his many productions for British television....
for television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1965. In 1984 the play was adapted for film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
by director David Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
.
Her short story, "By Any Other Name", is one of the essays in Gifts of Passage. It is in the Norton Anthology of English Literature and is widely studied.
She married Faubion Bowers in 1951 and had one son, Jai Peter Bowers in 1952. The couple divorced in 1966. In 1970, Rama Rau married Gurdon B. Wattles, and had no children. Faubion Bowers died in November 1999 and is survived by his son, Jai. Jai is currently living in Scottsdale
Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 the population of the city was 217,385...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, with his wife, Deborah Bowers, and has a daughter, Whitney Bowers. Jai also has two stepchildren, Morgan and Ross Mandeville.
Rau wrote a short memoir called "By Any Other Name", as mentioned above. She, 5 and a half, and her 8-year-old sister Premila briefly attended an Anglo-Indian School where the teacher anglicized their names. Santha's name was changed to Cynthia and her sister's was changed to Pamela. The condescending environment in which they worked and played was not fit. When confronted with the additional indignity of being told by the teacher that "Indians cheat", her older sister came immediately to her little sister's classroom and they walked home, never to return to that school.