Avoided rioting

“Thank you, West End reader, for bringing A Rising Man, a crime novel set in Calcutta, by Abir Mukherjee, to my attention,” says Kenneth Miln.

“Although unable to recall any instance of premeditated murder within the Jagatdal district, West Bengal (the location of Megna Jute Mills), I certainly remember the dreadful killings which took place during the Partition period when large numbers of bodies ended up in the river Hooghly.

“As a 10-year-old lad, living with my jute-wallah parents at Megna, I remember seeing several men being beaten to death by a lathi-weilding (bamboo poles) mob of rioters.

“Most of Dundee expatriate wallahs managed to avoid the rioting, but not all of them: my jute-wallah father received a nasty bump on the head from a disturbed rioter weilding a large ‘twister bobbin’.”