Missionaries and Indians

About the Book

This book is a fictionalized account of a teenage boy growing up in a community of Lutheran missionaries in India. It attempts to honestly portray his experiences there, steering a course between either eulogizing or condemning the missionary endeavour. Indian and missionary characters weather a cyclone and floods, try to make the grade as a missionary, send out mixed messages in sermons, have their ups and downs on a river trip on a houseboat, are taken to court, get caught up in a violent political protest, suffer through a little child’s illness, kill a sacred monkey, become a fantasy spy, take positions on sex, hunt a tiger, and come together for a topsy-turvy retreat at the beach. The stories told in the book touch on issues of perennial interest: the collision and integration of different worlds and cultures; interpersonal relationships among and between missionaries and Indians, between children and their parents, and between servants and masters; evolution and change; inclusion versus exclusion; religious beliefs; human-environment relationships; sex education; the real and the fake; fantasy versus reality; and taking risks.

About the Author

Wil Gesler was born in India of missionary parents during the Second World War and was educated there through high school at a school for missionary children. He spent most of his working life as an academic human geographer at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Since his retirement he has lived with his wife in England, most recently at the edge of the Lake District.