Spy Princess

Spy Princess: The Life of
Noor Inayat Khan
By Shrabani Basu
Roli. Price Rs 395;
pages 234

Spy thrillers are always good to read. To thrill, they have to be fiction. Real spies, we are told, are dull people like us-no vanishing inks, parachute daredevilry or passwords. Only secret transmissions.

But no. Even real-life spy stories can thrill. Shrabani Basu's Spy Princess thrills. And also makes us proud and sad.

Very few in India would have heard of her. Noor Inayat Khan was pretty-looking, born of an Indian father and an American mother in Moscow. She lived in Paris, trained in England, spied for England in France, and was captured and killed by the Germans.
Her distant relatives still live in India. They are the descendants of Tipu Sultan, who fought against the British. Ironically, Noor laid down her life for the British.

The author, a journalist in London, who authored Curry: The Story of the Nation's Favourite Dish, has done painstaking research to unravel the story of Noor. She got a good part of the story, on the working of the secret service, from the British archives which were declassified just when she was about to start work on the book. Then she traced Noor's brother in France and got the family story.

Noor was the first female wireless operator to be flown into German-occupied France. She worked there under the code name of Madeline and sabotaged German lines of communication.

Even after she learnt that all her fellow-spies had been captured, she remained in France, refusing an offer from her handlers in England to fly her back. Thus, for a while, Noor's was the only wireless operating for the Allies in occupied Paris. Perhaps the most gripping part of the account is-as in fictional thrillers-the part when she is finally betrayed (for 100,000 francs) by the sister of her first contact in Paris, and is trailed by the Gestapo. Even then she manages to cut her tail, but is finally cornered in her flat. She attempts to escape from her interrogation room through the bathroom window, but as in a movie scene, her tormentor waits outside, telling her, "Give me your hand."

All the same, Noor couldn't be cracked. She went down with her secrets in a German prison, where she was shot dead. The French honoured her with Croix de Guerre and the British with George Cross. India forgot her.

By R. Prasannan
http://www.manoramaonline.com/