Queen Vic’s secret life
SHRABANI Basu’s no household name, but many households may soon know she’s the author of the book behind Dame Judi Dench’s new film “Victoria and Abdul.” The story behind her story of this story of Queen Victoria and her beau from Agra is:
In year 2001, Basu was for whoknowswhy reason researching the history of curry. Learning Britain’s long-ago Queen Victoria loved the stuff, she for whoknowswhy reason went to the Isle of Wight to visit Her Majesty and Prince Albert’s old Osborne House.
There she saw a bronze bust of an Indian gentleman. In a dressing room, a portrait of the same person dressed in nobility’s red and gold.
Her Maj’s Durbar Room, crammed with that part of the world’s treasures, celebrated her “jewel in the crown,” India, which, although empress of that country, she never visited. The court prevented her from going for safety rea- sons. Thus, she had the subcontinent come to her.
In 2006, Basu visited Balmoral, the queen’s castle in the Scottish Highlands. There stood Karim Cottage, which Victoria had built for Abdul, this mysterious foreigner known as the munshi or teacher.
The saga of Abdul started in 1887, when he was summoned from his country to serve at the queen’s Golden Jubilee — 50 years on the throne. Slowly, always together, they grew close.
She says, “Abdul, 24, caught Victoria’s eye and was rapidly promoted. Extra English lessons were arranged so they could converse more easily. He gave her lessons in Urdu every evening. He read Ghalib’s poetry to her. Inseparable, the two maintained the relationship 12 years.
“Her household plotted against him, threatening that the Prince of Wales would have to step in. Still, Victoria stood by Abdul like a rock.”
The queen’s son Bertie, later King Edward VII, subsequently destroyed all correspondence between his mother and the munshi — but not her Hindustani journals. In those was discovered the story of her beloved Abdul Karim. Handwritten by Victoria in Urdu, the journals sat in the Royal Archive, omitted from all Western versions of Victorian history because no historians read Urdu. Basu: “I understand Urdu but couldn’t read the script. Abdul had written some lines in Roman for Victoria. The Urdu script, 13 volumes, I had translated. From their pages, the relationship of Victoria and Abdul emerged.” After Her Majesty’s death, Abdul returned to his own world. Abdul was childless. Investigation took Basu to Karachi, Pakistan, where his grandnephew led her to a journal stored in a trunk. His diary confirmed what she’d found in the queen’s Urdu writings. Basu then wrote “Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant.”