With Love, From Britain: A Mother Writes to Her Children (Observations on Changing Overseas Indian Culture)- An Old and Rare Book

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The personal letter still remains a vital link in human relations despite the revolution in communications. It touches the heart especially when it conveys sin cere feelings. In English literature letters of poets and men in public life of past centuries continue to evoke interest and, based on them, their personalities and achievements are reassessed. Even in India, we would have been denied one of most reliable sources of modern history had we not retrieved the letters of some of our national leaders. While Pandit Nehru gave us a history of the world through letters to his daughter, Smt. Indira Gandhi, Gandhiji continues to be in the news by the discovery of his letters to friends and admirers abroad Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has had the privilege of publishing recently "Gandhiji's Letters to Americans"" The letters throw a flood of light on Gandhiji's thought on fundamental questions such as war and peace and freedom and slavery affecting humanity as a whole.

True, Smt. Urmila Mohapatra does not stand on the same level of the great poets of the West or the great leaders of India. Her aim is modest - just to share her observations, experiences and feelings, even as she did with her two children, when she spent four months with her husband at Leicester, England with a wider circle of readers. She followed her husband, Shri Manindra Mohapatra, who took a sabbatical from his job at Indiana State University to do research at De Montfort University's Leicester Campus Smt. Urmila Mohapatra did not remain a silent partner but became an active associate, Sahadharmacharini, of her husband in his research work.

In August, 1996, my husband took a sabbatical from his job at Indiana State University to conduct research at De Montfort University's Leicester campus in England Leicester is a culturally diverse city with a sizable South Asian immigrant population in the East midlands area of England. We lived in Leicester for four months to do research and soak up the South Asian sub-culture of the city by taking advantage of every opportunity to do so. I wrote a series of letters including some postcards and e-mail from Leicester to our children, Simani and Sangram about our experiences in Britain, France, and Ireland. Upon my return to America, both of them urged me to edit these letters and put it all together in the form of a small book: Many other family friends like Professor Sudipto Roy, Professor Narsi Patel and Professor Lakshmi Mohapatra also encouraged me to write a book about my perspectives on the South Asian culture in Leicester Other individuals who supported me writing this book include, Dr Shashi Mohanty of the University of Maryland, our son-in-law, Jeffrey Price and Ann Marie Mohapatra, our daughter- in-law Professor Gurmeet Sekhon was particularly helpful in suggesting this format of the book.

In Britain, and particularly in Leicester, we had a lot of help from many people in the community. We had arrived in Leicester as visiting Asian Americans But within four months, we felt very much at home in Leicester. The faculty members of De Montfort University who made us very comfortable at Scrap toft Campus were Professor David Wilson, Professor John Greenwood, and Dr. Lynton Robbins Their spouses including Sue Wilson, Pam Greenwood, and Vivian Robbins welcomed us to their homes and we also had the pleasure of talking to their children Professor Asif Hussain of Vaughn College introduced us to the multi-ethnic culture of Leicester through readings and field studies in his course. Professor Elizabeth Wayne of Soar Valley College shared her scholarly interests on Indian culture in Britain and invited us to her class for an open discussion about Asian Indians in America Myrla Instance, the staff assistant of Professor John Greenwood, was al- ways available whenever we needed any help at Scrap toft Caroline Hime and other support staff members in the Department of Public Policy at De Montfort University were very helpful. My bibliographic research for a continuing project on "British Asians" was done in many libraries of Britain including Kimberlin Library of De Montfort University, Leicester Public Library, University of Leicester Library, Cambridge University Library, British Library, Special Library of the Commission for Racial Equality in London, and City of Westminster Library.