The Naulahka: A Story of West and East

Overview

The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (1892), co-written by Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott Balestier, is a cross-continental romance and adventure that pits American boosterism and individual daring against the hierarchies and rituals of a Rajput princely state under the British Raj. At its center is the legendary Naulahka, a necklace whose name evokes “nine lakhs” of rupees, a symbol of sovereignty, superstition, and desire. The novel follows an ambitious Coloradan who believes he can win both fortune and the woman he loves by wresting this talisman from an Indian court, only to discover that power, duty, and love are bound by codes he barely understands.

Plot

Nicholas Tarvin, a brash real estate speculator from the boomtown of Topaz, Colorado, is in love with Kate Sheriff, an idealistic young physician determined to devote herself to medical work among women in India. When Kate’s vocation threatens to take her permanently from him, Tarvin latches onto a grand plan: he will go to India, secure the Naulahka, a priceless royal necklace reputed to be the soul of a small princely state, and use its value to endow Kate’s hospital and thereby keep her, in purpose if not in geography, within his orbit.

Tarvin travels to Rajputana and insinuates himself into the court of Rhatore, where the youthful ruler is overshadowed by the formidable queen, Sitabhai, and watched over by a wary British Political Agent. The Naulahka lies at the heart of palace ritual and intrigue, guarded not only by jewels and attendants but by custom, fear, and the queen’s iron will. Tarvin’s bribes, audacity, and Western can-do bravado open doors, but they also spark rivalries and suspicions he cannot measure.

Meanwhile, Kate, working in the women’s quarters, confronts the constraints of purdah and the resistance of priests and courtiers. Her medical skill brings her into dangerous proximity with royal women and the heir himself, and her interventions, life-saving by Western standards, are read within the palace as sacrilege, threat, or leverage. Tarvin’s presence complicates her mission, challenging her strict ideals of duty while drawing her back toward the man she has tried to set aside.

As court tensions sharpen, Sitabhai maneuvers to secure her influence through the child heir and the talismanic necklace. Tarvin seizes the Naulahka in a desperate nocturnal raid, intending to convert it into Kate’s hospital endowment and force the court to treat her fairly. The theft unleashes crisis: the palace teeters on rebellion, the British Agent fears a political catastrophe, and Kate’s position becomes untenable. In the end Tarvin recognizes the limits of his self-made creed. He uses the necklace not for profit but as bargaining power to protect the heir and secure safe outcomes for Kate’s patients, then relinquishes it to avert disaster.

Characters and Dynamics

Tarvin’s swaggering optimism is measured against Kate’s ethical rigor; their romance turns on a conflict between personal ambition and selfless service. Sitabhai embodies the palace’s internal logic, a formidable antagonist whose motives mingle maternal calculation, statecraft, and superstition. The British Agent, bound by rules and caution, stands as a foil to Tarvin’s improvisations, underscoring the layered sovereignty of a princely state under empire.

Themes and Setting

The novel interrogates the myths of mastery, American faith in enterprise and British faith in orderly governance, showing both confounded by the lived complexity of Rhatore. It explores gender and power through Kate’s work in the zenana, where medicine confronts taboo, and through the Naulahka itself, a jewel that is less treasure than ritual authority. By the close, love persists but triumph is chastened: Tarvin and Kate choose each other with clearer eyes, and the necklace remains where it signifies more than money, its allure intact but its meaning transformed.