Santha Rama Rau
| Santha Rama Rau | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 24, 1923 Madras, British India (now Chennai, India) |
| Died | April 21, 2009 (aged 86) Amenia, New York, United States |
| Alma mater | Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts |
| Genre | Travel writer, novelist, playwright |
| Notable works |
This is India (1953) (novel) A Passage to India (1960) (play adaptation) |
| Spouse |
Faubion Bowers (1951-1966 -divorced) Gurdon Wattles (1970-1995 - his death) |
Santha Rama Rau (24 January 1923 – 21 April 2009) was an Indian-born American writer.
Santha was born the daughter of Sir Benegal Rama Rau, an Indian public servant, and his wife Dhanvanthi Rama Rau, an early advocate of Planned Parenthood. Santha's father was a member of the elite and prestigious Indian Civil Service, and he held the longest ever tenure (1949-57) as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Santha's paternal family was highly distinguished. Her grandfather, Benegal Raghavendra Rau, had been one of the earliest Indian doctors educated in western medicine. Her father's elder brother, Benegal Narsing Rau, was a renowned civil servant, jurist and statesman who had had an important role in drafting the Constitution of India. Another uncle, Benegal Shiva Rao, was an eminent journalist and member of Parliament.
While Santha's father was a south Indian Saraswat Brahmin from Canara whose mother-tongue was Konkani, her mother was a Kashmiri Brahmin from the far north of India, who had however grown up in Hubli, not very far from Canara.
In her early years, Rama Rau lived in an India under British rule. When aged 5 and a half, with her 8-year-old sister Premila, she 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 environment there they found to be condescending, as their teacher told them that "Indians cheat". They walked home, and never returned to that school. The incident was recounted in Rama Rau's short memoir entitled "By Any Other Name".
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Wikipedia