When Somerset Maugham Came to Hyderabad

Had I been born about a hundred years ago, I would have certainly met Somerset Maugham when he was in Hyderabad while traveling the country. (I probably would have asked him how he happened to write so well.) I discovered this fascinating bit of information that one of my favorite authors, Somerset Maugham, actually came to Hyderabad in 1938 while I was flipping through his ‘A Writer’s Notebook’ that I found the other day at a bookstore in Abids.

One of the few books I had taken along to Andaman was a copy of Somerset Maugham’s ‘A Writer’s Notebook’ that I wanted to read at leisure. But even before I had read past the preface I gave it away to a friend I made at Port Blair. Shamik must have got quite a surprise when I gave this book along with Paul Theroux’s ‘Traveling the World’ the day he was leaving for Kolkata after spending a little more than a month in our midst as a Media Fellow. Ever since that day I have been on the look out for another copy of this book, and finally on Tuesday I managed to lay my hands on it.

I was very thrilled to read that Somerset Maugham had been to Hyderabad. He writes about meeting a simple Sadhu who healed people, and later a Sufi, both of whom he describes quite beautifully without any sarcasm or cynicism one finds in the descriptions of such people by other foreigners. Maugham writes about meeting Sir Akbar Hydari and staying with him. I wish there were more accounts of this visit elsewhere too. Maugham’s visit to Hyderabad, and indeed to the country, is too fascinating to be treated as trivia.


Elsewhere in the book I came upon a piece of advice Maugham gave to a woman who wanted to know what training he would advise to her son who wanted to be a writer. It is interesting to read what Maugham told her. He writes that he advised her to give him enough money to enable him to travel and see the real life. Maugham writes: ‘A writer does well to place himself in such conditions that he may experience as many as possible of the vicissitudes which occur to men. He need do nothing very much, but he should do everything a little. I would have him in turns tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor.’


I guess this is where John Le Carre must have got the idea for the title of one of his classic novels- ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.’ Somerset Maugham’s ‘A Writer’s Notebook’ is full of such anecdotes, character profiles and incidents that tell a lot how he observed human nature and used it in his stories and novels. This book, along with his other book- ‘The Summing Up’, is great education for anyone aspiring to be a novelist.