By Mike Lord (Guest Blogger)
When
I started to work in Pakistan, in the Swat valley, I was a bit
dismayed that ladies were never seen, and were not to be seen. I
mean that, even if we saw one by accident we had to physically turn
our heads the other way! It is called “Purdah”.
Over
three years I did meet a few women, very few, like the wives of
several colleagues, two heavily veiled graduate students from
Peshawar, and two Belgian tourists wearing boiler suits who came our
way by accident. Bhakti, my driver, saw them first and invited them
to “his” camp thinking they were two male hitchhikers.
I
generously offered them a bathroom, and then they emerged they turned
out to be ladies, with very short hair, who had disguised themselves
as men. They stayed two days and then set off for Mingora, where
Malala came from several years later.
That
was a total of six females over three years!
My
next posting was in Sri Lanka, with hundreds of beautiful ladies, two
girls in my office operating word processors, several ladies as heads
of departments, and several working in other government departments.
But all untouchable to me.
But
wait. I did meet a lady in Colombo who invited me to her brother’s
house for dinner! Within ten minutes there was an electric power
cut, and we all sat around a table with two candles – romantic?
The timing was all wrong.
Then
I went to Singiriya, near Anuradhapura, and in the early morning
climbed the steel staircase to the Hall of Mirrors where about twenty
frescoes remained from probably the several hundred painted on the
walls of the cave about fifteen hundred years ago. No one knows who
they were.
None
of the ladies wore much clothing, as may have been the custom at that
time, and they obviously came from different parts of the world.
I
started to read the local history, and began to surmise that these
ladies might have been ladies of the court. None of their names were
recorded so I started to give them imaginary names, and places of
origin.
The
Rajah, we know was called Kasyapu, and he lived in the castle that he
was building on the isolated rock nowadays called Singiriya. Rajah
Kasyapu had, history related, four wives and many concubines.
History related that in his rock top castle he was living a life of a
recluse which means withdrawal from physical delights, in order words
no sex.
I
lived in Sri Lanka for three years and started to write my first
novel. There was a lot of history recorded, and fortunately in
English, and I used the names of the men and the imaginary names of
the ladies in the Rajah’s court.
I
did then sit down and write, but not publish, my first historical
novel “Sinagiri”. It means Sina – a lion and Giri
– a rock.
One
day my boss in England rang me and asked if I’d like to work in a
developing economy, which I thought I had been doing.
But
he wanted me to go and work in Vietnam.
What
a change! A different climate; different people; attractive ladies;
no or very little traffic, in those days. That was February in 1997.
The
traditional dress of the local ladies in Vietnam is the “au
dai” which is designed to show the physical
outline of their body, and has a high collar originally designed to
stop the wearer looking around! Many offices and restaurants dress
their female staff in these lovely garments.
But
my mind was working overtime! I was slowly piecing together the
history of the country in which I was working, and the methods used
to propagate especially by the ruling families!
Often
we know who married who, and history usually records the names of
their sons and successors, and occasionally some of their daughters.
But history doesn’t recall how they did that!
The
first romantic novel I wrote is called Hanoi Heat
about a girl who works in a model agency, who claims to have a French
father, and a visiting European man. Their romance starts slowly,
but then takes off like a bullet!
This
prompted me write about a local princess who lived in the late
eighteenth century. Her name was Le Thi Ngoc Han, and she was given
in marriage at the age of sixteen to a military hero called Nguyen
Hue, who later became Emperor Quang Trung. The trouble was that she
fell in love with her husband, and then success became tragedy as
they both died at an early age.
Please
have a look at my books. If they sound interesting, leave me a
comment and I’ll enter you in my drawing. The winner gets to choose
his or her favorite of any one of my 33 romance eBooks.
and
Readers
can also find me on Twitter and FaceBook.
About
the Author
Mike Lord has worked for over 50 years in what is called “developing economies”. Most of the time Mike’s work has been with the thousands of small scale farmers in remote areas, who have appreciated the benefits of sustainable livelihoods, so that they now have enough food to feed themselves, and also some to sell so that they have a cash income. That is why most of Mike’s novels are set in these countries and especially the remote locations.
Four
years ago Mike finally retired and started writing, and has now
produced 33 fantasy romance books ten of which have been published,
and 23 self-published at Smashwords and Amazon KDP. Adam Mann is a
pen name for Mike Lord.
