"Doing Time With Nehru"

Description

Berkeley artist and author, Yin Marsh, will present her new memoir: "Doing Time with Nehru."

The midnight knock on the door and the disappearance of a loved one into the hands of authorities is a 20th-century horror story familiar to many destined to “live in interesting times.” Yet, some stories remain untold. Such is the account of the internment of ethnic Chinese who had settled for many years in northern India. When the China-Indian Border War of 1962 broke out, over 2,500 Chinese-Indians were rounded up, placed in local jails, then transported over a thousand miles to the Deoli internment camp in the Rajasthan Desert.

Born in Calcutta in 1949, and raised in Darjeeling, Yin Marsh was only 13 when, first, her father was arrested, and then Yin, her aged grandmother, and eight-year-old brother were all taken to the Darjeeling Jail, then sent to Deoli. Ironically, President Nehru of India, who authorized the mass arrests, had once “done time” in Deoli during India’s war for independence. Yin and her family were assigned to the same bungalow where Nehru had also been unjustly held.

Eventually released, Marsh emigrated to America with her mother, attended college, married and raised her own family, even as the emotional trauma remained buried. When her own college-age daughter began to ask questions ¾ and when a friend’s wedding would require a return to her homeland ¾ Yin was finally ready to face what had happened to her family.

Yin Marsh received a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in East Asian Studies with a minor in Mandarin Chinese from American University, Washington, D.C., in 1971. She taught Korean and Chinese post-doctorate visiting scholars at the University of California Berkeley and has worked as a visual artist. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, a retired foreign service officer. They raised a son and daughter who also reside in California and continue the family globetrotting tradition.

To order a copy of the book, go to: http://doingtimewithnehru.com
To contact the author for interview, email Yin Marsh, [email protected]

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http://doingtimewithnehru.com

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510-290-6254

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