Bhowani Junction

First published in 1954 in the wake of the partition of India, John Masters' great novel Bhowani Junction has increased in stature over the years. Standing between E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and the acclaimed works of later writers such as Paul Scott and Salman Rushdie, Bhowani Junction is both a richly intriguing novel and a superb evocation of the tensions and conflicts at the birth of modern India. It is one of John Masters' seven novels which followed several generations of the Savage family serving in the British Army in India. Bhowani Junction is set in the wake of the partition of India, as the British prepare to withdraw from the newly independent country. Evoking the tensions and conflicts that accompanied the birth of modern India, the characters struggle to find their place in the new India that is emerging. In the last hectic days of the British Raj, Victoria has to choose between marrying a British Army officer or a Sikh, Ranjit, as she struggles to find her place in the new, independent India. It is Masters' most famous novel, and was made into a film in 1956, starring Ava Gardener and Stewart Granger. John Masters evokes the tensions and conflicts that accompanied the birth of modern India in his classic novel Bhowani Junction. Set in the late 1940's in the wake of partition it has become one of the great novels of India, alongside E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and the work of Paul Scott and Salman Rushdie. In the last hectic days of the British Raj, as the British prepare to withdraw from India, Victoria has to choose between marrying a British Army officer or a Sikh, Ranjit, as she struggles to find her place in the new India that is emerging.