Previous
Act 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Indian Ink, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Effects of Colonialism
History and Memory
Art and Inspiration
Sex and Love
Summary
Analysis
Flora Crewe and David Durance dance with two other English couples in the Jummapur Club in 1930, while across the stage Eldon Pike sits on the club’s verandah in the 1980s. The other dancers ask Flora about her poetry. One man brings up the imperialist writer Rudyard Kipling. The other—Durance’s boss, the Resident—mentions studying with the classicist poet Alfred Housman, who believed that everyone either gives in to love (like Virgil) or tries to resist it (like Ovid). Flora says that she’s like Virgil.
Flora inhabits an entirely different persona and social world with Durance than she does with Das. She’s equally comfortable in both, but she clearly finds Durance’s less interesting and inspiring. Meanwhile, the other colonial officials’ references to Kipling (an avowed imperialist) and Housman (a noted scholar of the Romans and Greeks) suggests that they essentially view their purpose in terms of civilizing India through Western influence—even as the Indians around them are demanding autonomy and self-determination. Flora is starting to see how the notion of Western cultural superiority is merely a flimsy justification for plundering India’s labor and resources.
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One of the women asks if Flora will be in town for the ball honoring Queen Victoria’s birthday—she says no. Flora explains that David has promised to take her for a ride in his car, and the woman notes that the Rajah of Jummapur has a “terrific” collection of 86 cars. Flora and David go out to the verandah for fresh air, and the other man starts quoting Kipling.
Flora’s disinterest in the ball suggests that she is growing more and more skeptical of the Empire. The Rajah’s “terrific” cars show how he profits handsomely from doing the Empire’s bidding—and again shows how colonialism is about nothing more than amassing wealth and power.
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In the 1980s, Dilip meets Pike on the verandah. He’s wearing a fine suit and carrying an old, worn-out one with military ribbons on it. He helps Pike into it and explains that nobody can enter the Jummapur Club without formal wear. But Dilip also declares that he’s learned the painter’s name: Nirad Das. The man who lent him the jacket remembers Das and Flora. Pike insists on meeting this man immediately. Dilip explains that he's an elderly World War II veteran named Subadar Ram Sunil Singh. Now, he works in the cloakroom, but as a young boy, he operated Flora’s punkah. Dilip and Pike go inside for dinner.
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Settings and timelines mix together onstage. In a letter to Eleanor, Flora writes that Durance took her out in his car, that she ate dinner at the Club, and that the Club members were talking about withdrawing from India. Servants bring her and Durance their whiskey-sodas, and then Dilip and Pike have dinner in the same club, five decades later.
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Durance asks about Flora’s health and offers to show her the English cemetery. He says that English colonists “drop like flies” of tropical diseases in India, so he finds it peculiar that the doctor would send her there. She clarifies that the doctor told her to travel by sea to a warm place, and she chose India. Durance explains that English soldiers, government workers, and businesspeople all come to the same club in Jummapur, because it’s ruled by the Rajah. Under the new “Indianization” policy, they’re training Indian officers to run the civil service themselves. But Indians can’t even enter the Club.
David asks Flora to ride with him in the morning and tells her to say yes: everyone has been gossiping about her and is watching them. He awkwardly kisses her and admits that people know about her scandal in London. She explains that her publisher faced an obscenity trial for printing her poems. She mostly wrote about sex, and when the judge asked why, she replied, “Write what you know.” All the newspapers covered it.
David Durance mounts a horse and starts practicing his polo swing. Flora asks about India’s future. Durance notes that Gandhi just finished his Salt March and declares that “the jails are filling up” due to conflicts between Hindus, who support Gandhi’s fight for independence, and Muslims, who don’t want to live under Hindu rule. Flora mounts a horse and jokes that governing India looks fun. Durance declares that the Indians view the English as superior rulers who have finally “pulled this country together.”
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As Flora and Durance ride out in the country, a group of birds startles their horses. Flora admits that it’s her first time riding a horse, and Durance says that he can tell. He laughs and proclaims that everything “went wrong” when the Suez Canal opened, English women started coming to India, and English men stopped mixing with the natives. Flora asks how Durance’s boss (the Resident) knows that she’s in India for health reasons, since she hasn’t told anyone—except Das. Durance says that Das probably gossiped about her. But Flora calls that impossible. Durance asks Flora to marry him. She says no. He asks if she would ever consider it. She says no again.
Dilip and Pike drink American cola in the Rajah’s palace, which is now a luxury hotel. The Rajah still lives upstairs. The waiters are dressed like his old servants, and they effortlessly cross over between both sides of the stage—1930 and the 1980s.
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Subadar Ram Sunil Singh turned out to be “a goldmine”—he told Pike and Dilip that Nirad Das was imprisoned for throwing a mango. Pike asks Dilip if he paid Singh too much and admits that he doesn’t know how to deal with India’s poverty—like whether to give beggars money. Dilip jokes that begging is a profession in India, which is spiritually “in a higher stage of development.” That’s why Madame Blavatsky moved her Theosophical Society to India, he says, quoting his favorite English poem, “Bagpipe Music.”
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Pike asks why Dilip loves English so much, and Dilip replies that English is “a disaster” in India—50 years after independence, India’s education system and high society have scarcely changed. This isn’t the India that Gandhi and Nirad Das were fighting for. Dilip also thinks it’s a shame that Das’s “revolutionary spirit went into his life and [not] his art.”
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Pike asks if Dilip thinks Das and Flora had a sexual relationship. Dilip says no—but upon further reflection, he admits that it could be true but is impossible to know. A waiter informs them that the former Rajah—who is now just “an ordinary politician”—is coming downstairs to meet them.
In 1930, the Rajah visits Flora’s bungalow in his Rolls Royce to invite her to tiffin (lunch). He apologizes for not being able to show her all of his cars at once, but then, several of them drive slowly by her bungalow in a procession. She admires them, and the Rajah explains that he won one of them while gambling with an English Duke in the South of France. He jokes that, while he goes to the South of France for his health, Flora comes to India. (She is disappointed to hear that he knows about her illness.)
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The Rajah starts talking about Winston Churchill—whom he knows from school—and declares that Britain’s power depends on controlling India. But the Princely States (like Jummapur) also depend on the British for their survival. Independence would only lead to conflict and division, the Rajah concludes. He compares the nationalist threat today to the fundamentalist threat during “the First Uprising”—a term Flora doesn’t understand, since the British call it “The Mutiny.”
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As the Rajah’s cars continue driving by, a servant brings snacks, drinks, and cigarettes. The Rajah smokes and tells Flora about his art collection. Some of it is erotic art, which he can’t show her. She is offended, but he agrees to let her see all of it, on the condition that he can gift her one painting. She eats an apricot, and the Rajah points out that most Englishwomen don’t eat fruit without a thick skin in India. Suddenly, Flora recognizes one of the cars that goes by. She walks offstage to go sit in it, and Eldon Pike explains that it used to belong to Flora’s ex-fiancé, Augustus de Boucheron (or Perkins Butcher), a wealthy philanthropist who burned Modigliani’s portrait of her. Flora asked Modigliani to paint her again, but he died before he had the chance.
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The Rajah approaches Eldon Pike and they start to chat. (The same actor now represents the original Rajah’s grandson, in the 1980s.) He apologizes for being late and explains that he’s just a member of Parliament now. He also explains that his father gave away his grandfather’s cars during World War II and produces a thank-you note from Flora to her grandfather from 1930. According to the note, the original Rajah gifted Flora an old painting of Krishna and Radha. Pike asks if it was a nude watercolor on paper, but this confuses the Rajah. After a handshake, they part ways—but Pike doesn’t understand when the Rajah says “Namaste” (goodbye).
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Anish Das and Eleanor Swan sit in the garden, drinking gin-and-tonics and looking at Nirad Das’s painting of Flora and the painting the Rajah gifted to her. Swan talks about how she and her late husband Eric started drinking gin-and-tonics in India to avoid malaria. She also reveals that she didn’t tell Eldon Pike about the paintings. Anish remembers receiving the news of his father’s death one Christmas day while he was studying in England. In his father’s trunk of papers, he found two things: a newspaper clipping from his father’s trial for “conspiring to cause a disturbance at the Empire Day celebrations” in 1930 and the nude watercolor painting of Flora.
Looking at the watercolor, Swan points out that Das didn’t paint Flora “Indian”—meaning that she doesn’t look flat, like the tree, birds, and sky in the background. Anish says that these elements are all important symbols. For instance, there’s a vine whose leaves and petals are falling off, which represents the fact that Flora was dying. But Swan disagrees: “sometimes a vine is only a vine.” She points out that Das has painted a copy of Up the Country on Flora’s pillow, and Eldon Pike drops in with a footnote to explain that Emily Eden wrote Up the Country while following her brother on a tour of India.
Back in 1930, Das and Coomaraswami are sitting on Flora’s verandah when she comes home in the evening. She invites them inside, where they light the oil lamp and sit. Coomaraswami apologizes for the unannounced visit and asks about her day. She explains that she visited the Rajah and talked to him about cars, art, poetry, and politics. Coomaraswami starts asking her a convoluted question, but Das clarifies that Coomaraswami is trying to say that he’s sorry if the Rajah criticized Flora for her connection to the Theosophical Society. Flora explains that the Society never came up; Das and Coomaraswami are delighted, and they apologize for the trouble and start to leave.
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Flora stops Das and demands that he tell her what’s wrong. He explains that the Rajah has banned the Theosophical Society, allegedly for participating in the riots. He collects his watercolor painting of Flora, which he won’t be able to finish. Flora admits that she’s considering leaving Jummapur tomorrow, and she asks Das if he told anyone about her health problems. (Tired of waiting for Das, Coomaraswami leaves in his buggy.) Das explains that everyone knows about Flora’s illness because Joshua Chamberlain mentioned it in his letter to the Theosophical Society—which the Rajah and the Resident surely opened and read before it reached Coomaraswami. Flora weeps and apologizes.
Das gathers his painting supplies and prepares to leave, but Flora asks if she can keep the unfinished watercolor so that she won’t forget him. He agrees. He asks if they will see each other again. Flora says maybe—she has to take a ship back to England in July because her sister will be giving birth in October. Then, Das pulls a watercolor out of his pocket and gives it to Flora. She finds it stunningly beautiful and tells Das that it has the love rasa. (Shringara, he clarifies.) Under the moonlight, a recording plays of Flora’s poem about giving in to heat (sexual desire).
At dawn, Flora lies in her bed on one part of the stage while Pike and Dilip come onto another part, drinking and chanting the poem “Bagpipe Music.” Dilip tells Pike that the Jummapur branch of the Theosophical Society was shut down for its nationalism. Then, he falls asleep. Pike mumbles about Flora and India, inserting his comments into the general structure of “Bagpipe Music.” Then, he wakes Dilip, and they plan to get breakfast. Dilip says that Pike hasn’t experienced real Indian heat yet—and will go to the hills soon.
Back in 1930, Flora wakes up at dawn and meets David Durance on her verandah. He offers to take her for a ride and show her the sunrise. She agrees. While she gets dressed inside her bedroom, Durance stands outside and tells her that he ran into Nirad Das on his way to visit her. He waved to Das, but Das refused to acknowledge him. “There’s hope for him yet,” Flora remarks, which confuses Durance. Flora finishes dressing, so Durance enters her bedroom. He picks up her copy of Up the Country and finds the Rajah’s miniature painting of Krishna and Radha inside.
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Durance asks why the Rajah would give Flora a painting, and Flora comments that perhaps the Rajah wanted to sleep with her. Durance is horrified, complains that this puts him “in a frightfully difficult position,” and insists to know if the Rajah ever visited Flora. She refuses to answer, but he declares that it’s his job to report on the Rajah for the British, and Flora is “a politically sensitive person” because of her links to Chamberlain. She tells him to report whatever he wants, and they drive off in the Daimler car.
Flora sits on her verandah with her suitcase and writes that Eleanor “won’t approve” of her latest romantic interest, but also that she’s finally leaving Jummapur. (In a footnote, Eldon Pike explains that David Durance died during World War II.) Flora writes that she feels better and is starting to write poetry again; Pike notes that the poetry Flora wrote in Jummapur formed part of her 1932 book Indian Ink.
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Decades later, Anish and Mrs. Swan read this same letter. Anish declares that Pike is wrong to insinuate that Flora’s affair was with Durance, because it was really with his father, Nirad Das. But Swan argues that it’s not clear—she would have approved of Das more than Durance at the time, even if she has since become a conservative. She comments that Das changed, too: he ended up throwing mangos at the Resident’s Daimler car. So, Swan concludes, nobody knows if Flora’s romance was with Das, Durance, or the Rajah. And it doesn’t matter, she says, because Flora “used [men] like batteries.”
Anish decides that he won’t tell Eldon Pike about his father’s watercolor of Flora—his father wouldn’t want it publicly mentioned. Anish thanks Swan for the tea, cake, and jam. Swan reminisces about “the fruit trees at home” in India, which released a flood of flowers that covered Flora’s gravestone.
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“Nell,” a much younger Eleanor Swan, pays her respects at her sister Flora’s grave in India in 1931. Flora died on June 10th, 1930, just weeks after leaving Jummapur. Eric, an English official stationed in India, promises to add “Poet” to Flora’s gravestone and recalls how Flora gave a poetry reading to his Club. Nell bursts into tears, and Eric comforts her. He asks about Nell’s baby—who died as an infant—and asks Nell to call him “Eric,” not “Mr. Swan.” He invites her to a cricket match. They leave, and then Eldon Pike comes onstage to search for Flora’s grave.
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In the play’s final scene, Flora again reads from her letters to Eleanor (Nell). She writes that she’s leaving Jummapur, and while she “committed a sin [she]’ll carry to [her] grave,” she hopes that her “soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper,” like Radha the herdswoman. On one part of the stage, Nazrul and Coomaraswami take Flora to the train station and help her board, while on another part, Nell goes through Flora’s suitcase, finding the blue dress, Das’s canvas, the copy of Up the Country, and the Rajah’s miniature painting.
The play ends with Flora reading aloud one of Emily Eden’s letters from Up the Country. Eden describes a small group of Europeans throwing a beautiful celebration for the Queen’s birthday in 1839, while a group of thousands of Indians waits on and bows to them. Eden asks why the Indians don’t just “cut all our heads off and say nothing more about it.”
