John Lang

This book is in pursuit of Alice, whose name rhymes with gallus. That, however, is another memory, another book waiting to germinate. John Lang (1816-1864), inebriated on John Exshaw, ''a ruling spirit of those days'', most of his adult life, was a dogged underdog from Sydney, who spared no effort to hurt the John Company (East India Company). He settled in India at the age of 26, and was a prolific writer, journalist and lawyer.

His novels were too feminist for Victorian comfort, while his white male protagonists were often described with the phrase-''India he loved, England he despised.'' As a journalist he was irreverent towards the army and legal systems; modern journalists could take a lesson or two from Mr Lang. As a lawyer, John Lang learnt Persian and Urdu fast so that he could argue cases in the lower courts. He fought a number of important cases for Indians against the John Company, and won some-the establishment found a way to send him to jail. The Rani of Jhansi was so impressed, she invited him to be her lawyer. There was a party going on at Lang''s house when he died. He said that a party should not be stopped just on account of his ill health.