Godden was born in Sussex, England. She grew up with her three sisters in Narayanganj, then part of colonial India. She returned to the United Kingdom with her sisters for schooling in 1920, eventually training as a dance teacher. She went to Calcutta in 1925 to start a dance school for English and Indian children. Godden ran the school for 20 years with the help of her sister Nancy. During this time she published her first best-seller, Black Narcissus (1939).
Unfinished Chapter of Rumer Godden's Life'
Rungli-Rungliot was Rumer Godden's first published work which she donated to His Majesty's Armed Forces and published by Penguin in paperback edition. She expresses herself rather more naturally in her first attempt than in its sanitized version This Far and No Further which appeared a decade later. This is an autobiographical chapter of her life when she was still quite unsettled and her attention not yet focused.
It was during those years in the History of Imperial Britain when the tea estates of Darjeeling were enjoying the best of its years. Each of the tea estates had three Sa'abs, a Manager who was supported by a Garden Assistant and a Factory Assistant. They worked very very hard and played very very hard; an Assistant Manager Samson-Way holds the world record of 120 lb mahsheer caught by rod with McDonald spoon (another Planter) which is unbroken till this day. You may recall how a group of these daring tea-planters were employed during World War II in a cloak-and-dagger operation to blow up a German ship anchored off the port of Goa.
An unwritten custom of the day was most of the Managers were "locally married" to Gurkha wives, Mr Godden Sr being no exception, before he went down to Narayanganj as a Manager of a jute mill. The Gurkha wives were not just 'kept women'; many Managers paid great deal of attention to the social refinement of their Gurkha wives and several of these wives followed them abroad when they retired.
A very energetic and resourceful woman named Phillis Hill used to run a boarding school known as Greenshield for the children of these tea planters, most of them Anglo-Gurkha children. Later in life, many of these Anglo-Gurkhas immigrated to the UK but for some unknown reason, those who stayed back in India, prefer to be known as Anglo-Indians. Rumer Godden mentions the name of her host, the Manager, simply as W and refuses to introduce his wife; she was a Gurkha woman.
As WWII progressed, service of all the Assistant Managers were demanded for the greater cause and the Managers were obliged to fill up the vacant offices locally. Rumer Godden casually makes a mention of the Munshi of Zinglam, (so much for the fair-play, the Gurkha Assistant Managers were given the arbitrary title of Munshi and you can bet on it, much less remuneration). The Munshi's son had received King's Commission which Ms Godden mentions in her book although it is doubtful if they ever met.
Thus, Black Narcissus is the account of her own experience where the Managers were treated like a Maharajah and Kanchhi was the name of Mr Godden Sr's Gurkha wife. Listen to this popular ditty of that time... "Cricket ko muni Sa'ab le khelne tennis ko ramro game; Tilhari mathi jor-kantha laune Godden ko Kanchhi mem", she was known to be a beautiful woman. Let a Gurkha read it, he will begin to hum it instantly.
However, the film-makers (of Black Narcissus) totally ruined the integrity of Ms Godden's story and it is a pity Jean Simmons died before learning she was acting the role of a Gurkha woman. And, how could you forget of course, the Maharajah was the famous Tea Planter, the Burra Sa'ab himself. It is however, not understood why the film-wallahs brought in Sabu, perhaps it was meant to Indianise the episode.'
Following an unhappy marriage of 8 years, she moved in 1942 with her two daughters to Kashmir, living first on a house boat, and later in a rented house where she started a herb farm. After a mysterious incident in which it appeared that an attempt had been made to poison both her and her daughters she returned to Calcutta in 1944; the novel Kingfishers Catch Fire was based on her time in Kashmir. She remarried in 1949 and returned to the United Kingdom to concentrate on her writing, moving house frequently, but living mostly in Sussex and London.
In the early 1950s, Godden became interested in Roman Catholicism, though she did not officially convert until 1968, and several of her later novels contain sympathetic portrayals of Roman Catholic priests and nuns. Two of her books deal with the subject of women in religious communities. In Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy and In This House of Brede she acutely examined the balance between the mystical, spiritual aspects of religion and the practical, human realities of religious life. In 1968 she took the tenancy of Lamb House where she lived until the death of her husband in 1973. She moved to Moniaive in Dumfriesshire in 1978 when she was 70. She was appointed OBE in 1993. She visited India once more, in 1994, returning to Kashmir for the filming of a BBC Bookmark documentary about her life and books. Rumer Godden died at the age of 90 on November 8, 1998.
A number of Godden's novels are set in India, the atmosphere of which she evokes through all the senses; her writing is vivid with detail of smells, textures, light, flowers, noises and tactile experiences. Her books for children, especially her several doll stories, convincingly convey the secret thoughts, confusions and disappointments, and aspirations of childhood. Godden has been criticized for her class distinctions, which often involve unusual young people not recognized for their talents by ordinary lower or middle-class people but supported by the educated, rich, and upper-class, to the anger, resentment, and puzzlement of their relatives.
