ABSTRACT
Poona looms large in the British-Indian myth, though more for those who have not been to India than for those who have. In fact, this city and cantonment on the high table-land of the Deccan a hundred miles east of Bombay was something of a backwater after it became British in 1817. The Governor needed to spend some time at Poona since it was the headquarters of the Bombay Army. The legendary Poona Colonel was thus something of an armchair soldier; one suspects that the more battle-scarred officers of Meerut, Rawalpindi and Peshawar did much to further the legend of his crustiness. The only people appearing to enjoy the evening were two Amirs of Sind who lived in Poona and who, like other Indians, were glad of an invitation to a 'European nautch'. The Falklands found very little 'Eastern magnificence' at Poona.
