WHITE CARGO By Felicity Kendal, Michael Joseph, ? 8.99 Jennifer died first, then the parents Laura and Geoffrey. It fell on the younger daughter, Felicity, to tell the unusual story of the Kendals and Shakespeareana, their itinerant theatre company. They first visited India during the war, again in 1947-48 and finally in 1953 to stay for 20 years, giving thousands of shows all over the land. This book is Felicity?s autobiography, Geoffrey?s biography and Shakespeareana?s history. But it is not a dry record; a deeply felt impressionistic narrative, it flits in and out of passages addressed to a comatose Geoffrey by Felicity. Geoffrey was that rare sahib who turned Indian while retaining the dynamism of the raj. He had a purpose, which Indian academics defeat: ?lifting Shakespeare out of classroom textbooks and on to the stage where he belonged.? Yet he bore no white man?s burden; he loathed England and loved India. He tried persuading Felicity not to go back: ?They won?t appreciate you in England...[and] the climate?s bloody awful.? Touring by train on third class wooden seats with bedrolls and cockroaches, they saw more of India than most of us have, including refugee columns at Partition, which ?cannot possibly be put down on paper. It was more terrible than you can imagine.? Yet, he could write in his diary about ?the multiple creeds...all living in harmony. This country is blessed by myriads of gods, all looking down upon us. One can feel it as soon as one arrives. It is here for everyone... and the blessing is India. That is why India is my home.? But when his pupil Utpal Dutt was jailed, he realized ?my India is no more ...scoundrels who love power...are lauded as heroes.? One of the last family companies, Shakespeareana was led by this explosive father figure and Laura, the calm and tidy mother. He was also one of the last actor-managers ? not a director, as Felicity points out. So for him vocal delivery meant everything; ?Fill your belly full of air!? he used to bellow. Nevertheless, he introduced sagacious innovations like yoga in training and discarded realistic sets or typecasting by skin colour. Among his pithy words of thespian advice were ?Enjoy being nervous? and ?In love scenes, the audience must be thrilled, not you.? Felicity?s home, too, was India where she spent her first 20 years. She spoke fluent Hindi and learnt Indian history in school; she topped in Urdu, stood last in English. Her writing shines with an actor?s powers of observation. Love of India sometimes leads Felicity into hyperbole, as when her thoughts on Jennifer?s clinical incineration at a London crematorium romanticize the ceremony round a Hindu pyre. She obviously has no real experience of hellholes like Keoratala. She does not crosscheck her geography, for instance placing Ludhiana in Rajasthan, Darjeeling at 4,000 feet ?and the border with Tibet, a few miles below?. However, we excuse these slips by sheer force of her inner veracity. Like many theatre stars, she learnt the ropes backstage, given the responsibility of ?propswallah?. White Cargo regales us with her fond memories of the company, from uproarious anecdotes about Octavius Caesar?s dentures flying into the front row, to the romance of Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer. Felicity is now one of the most sought after London actresses.Yet only the last third of the book concerns England. She narrates the profound culture shock of feeling a foreigner in the West. For her soul remains in India, affirmed sotto voce to the paralyzed Geoffrey: ?Like you, this is where I feel at home. The poverty, the corruption, the begging children, the political madness that prevails half the time ? none of them can alter the spirit of the place...There is a grasp of reality here, an acceptance of the fragility of this one life and the certainty of death, some unspoken understanding that there is more beyond our need for high achievement, that there is a past and a future as important as the moment...that we are not to take ourselves so very seriously.?