The Wheel of Surya - Jamila Gavin

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      JAMILA GAVIN

      When I am asked if the Surya trilogy is autobiographical, the answer is yes and no. Yes, that I couldn’t have written it had I not been born in India into the period leading up to the Second World War, independence and partition; yes, that as a child I lived both in a palace the Punjab and in a drab flat in a war-damaged London street; yes, that music, sea voyages, schools, friends were all part of my rich Anglo-Indian experience. But no – in any accurate sense to do with the plot or events described in the books. Everything I experienced simply became material with which I could overlay a complete fantasy. As a child can turn a table into a house or two chairs into a train, I turned my life into a fiction in which any resemblance to characters living or dead is purely coincidental – as they say in the movies.

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       With gratitude to my parents for their memories;

       much love to Arthur, and to Geoff and Miriam for their endless support.

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      First published in Great Britain 1992 by Methuen Children’s Books

      This edition published 2018 by Egmont UK Limited

      The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

      Text copyright © 1992 Jamila Gavin

      The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      First e-book edition 2018

      ISBN 978 1 4052 9174 3

      Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9278 8

       www.egmont.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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      ‘The Body is the chariot,

      Reason is the charioteer,

      Mind is the reins.

      The Horses are the five senses,

      Their paths the objects of sense.

      So the one whose chariot is driven by Reason

      And holds the reins of his Mind,

      Reaches the end of the journey.’

       The Upanishads

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Dedication and Copyright

       Epigraph

       EIGHT: Goodbye

       PART TWO: Fire

       NINE: Fire

       TEN: Flight

       ELEVEN: Into the Midnight Hour

       TWELVE: The Edge of the World

       THIRTEEN: The Ship

       FOURTEEN: Changing

       FIFTEEN: A House on the Heath

       SIXTEEN: An Address in Whitechapel

       SEVENTEEN: The Meeting

       EIGHTEEN: A Sound from the Past

       NINETEEN: Unwillingly to School

       TWENTY: A Man in a Riley

       PART THREE: Just as in the Wheel

       TWENTY-ONE: Finding Out

       TWENTY-TWO: Missing

       TWENTY-THREE: Have You Ever Been Lonely?

       TWENTY-FOUR: On the Run

       TWENTY-FIVE: Deep and Dreamless Streets

       Q & A with Jamila Gavin

       Map

       The Wheel of Surya: Fascinating Fact File

       Back series promotional page

       Swift and Shining

      ‘Swift and shining is the great God Surya,

      Maker of light,

      Illuminator of the universe;

      Traversing the heavens in his twelve-wheeled chariot,

      With flying sparks and seven horses.

      Creating day

      Ensuring birth

      With the rays of his all-seeing sun.’

       The Rig-Veda