• DOI:10.1080/13698010020019226
• Corpus ID: 161906676

The Shampooing Surgeon and the Persian Prince: Two Indians in Early Nineteenth-century Britain

@article{Teltscher2000TheSS,
  title={The Shampooing Surgeon and the Persian Prince: Two Indians in Early Nineteenth-century Britain},
  author={Kate Teltscher},
  journal={Interventions},
  year={2000},
  volume={2},
  pages={409 - 423}
}

• Kate Teltscher
• Published 1 January 2000
• History
• Interventions

At an estate belonging to the Baker family in Cork, in the year 1799, there was an encounter between two Indians. Dean Mahomed had settled in Cork with his Anglo-Irish wife, and Abu Taleb Khan was a nobleman on a European tour. Both wrote travel narratives, the earliest accounts to be published by Indians in English. This paper explores the questions of cultural identity raised by these texts and by the careers of the two writers. To what extent do the authors adopt or subvert an orientalized persona? Do the texts offer points of resistance to the dominant discourses of colonialism? By asking such questions, we may hope to achieve a more nuanced reading of the forms of hybridity. The Travels of Dean Mahomet (1794) recounts the young Mahomed's infatuation with British military life, his adoption by Captain Baker, service with an East India Company regiment and passage to Ireland. Later in his career, Dean Mahomed ran the Hindostanee Coffee House in London, then a series of steam baths in Brighton as Shampooing Surgeon to the king. His history suggests the capacity to appropriate new cultural forms, anticipate shifts in fashion, and reinvent himself constantly. The Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan in Asia, Africa, and Europe (published London 1810), originally written in Persian, was translated into English by a professor at the East India Company college. During his stay in London, Abu Taleb was known as 'the Persian Prince' and extensively feted by high society. Although generally an anglophile, Abu Taleb does include a section in his journal on the defects of the English character. While clearly a form of legitimized dissent, the chapter offers a rare opportunity of listening to the voice of an Indian subject answering back.