Throughout the book, the narrative flashes back to memories Mary Lennox has of her childhood in India. The first part of The Secret Garden is set in British India, where Mary's parents are presumably part of the British colonial apparatus stationed there to rule over areas of occupied land. When Colin is acting imperiously toward a servant in Chapter 14, the narrator tells the reader that Mary sees him as a "Young Rajah," an honorary Indian title here denoting a prince-like figure:
“Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah. He had rubies and emeralds and diamonds stuck all over him. He spoke to his people just as you spoke to Martha. Everybody had to do everything he told them—in a minute. I think they would have been killed if they hadn’t.”
Mary's lived experience differs greatly from those of the people around her, and there is a huge appetite at Misselthwaite Manor for her tales of "rubies and emeralds and diamonds," imperious boy-rulers, and other "exotic" things. The depictions of India under British colonial rule in this book are stereotypical, essentializing (meaning that they reduce people to categorial traits), and often overtly racist. British people in the book are fascinated by Mary's stories of India, making her tell them over and over again. At first, when she does this she is mentally transported back to India, and the novel describes her nostalgia and sadness. These memories are initially sore reminders for the child of the lifestyle and situation she has lost with the death of her mother and father, and she returns to them with an all-encompassing intensity.
But eventually, when she stops missing India and begins to live her life fully in Yorkshire, the flashbacks in the novel dissipate and are replaced by Mary telling stories about "fakirs" and "snake-charmers" for the amusement of her peers. These tales contribute to the formation of the children's idea of "the Magic" that allows people to change their own lives if they try hard enough. Cultural lines become tangled as bits of Mary's Indian experience become cobbled-together with Colin's amateur philosophy, creating a tale that references both cultures but belongs fully to neither.
