This didactic and rich autobiography book gives an intricate insight into the Hindu cultures and traditions through the eyes of Hermant, a man with a bel esprit, who moved from India to London as a young man in 1948 at the sentient age of 20, who has since written 12 books on Hinduism for British schools.

Hermant gives a refreshingly candid encounter of his life as a first generation Indian in a new country without being idyllic, and does not hold back from detailing the obstacles and strife that he experienced.

The author’s description of meeting with racial prejudice is raw, compelling and utterly engaging. He was at the receiving end of discrimination from not only his peers but also his audacious students who regularly called him “a f***ing Paki and a foreigner.”

Hermant discusses his trajectory from his quest for higher education, to being a struggling author- his first book which he published privately saw a profit of a mere £200- to becoming an established British teacher, and then a published writer, and finally a priest.

A stimulating trait in Hermant’s writing is his openness and frank style of writing. He describes his home village in India as a place where “the majority of the population opened up their bowels al fresco. If the village pigs had not eaten up the human mess, the whole surrounds of the village would have remained very unhygienic.”

Hermant goes onto describe with honest self disclosure the intimate relationship he had with his then English girlfriend, Helen, a learned and erudite woman who then became his wife, “I fully approved of this shy and demure young lady who had shown me word-power in action by her explicit imperatives in bed…An explicit imperative from a demure but sexually eager female is really a great aphrodisiac.”

The author is just as sincere and enthusiastic in his expression of his disdain towards certain elements of his culture.

“There was a shameful condition…followed by many orthodox Hindu Brahmins. It involved making young widows ‘ugly’ in society by having their heads shaved and forcing them to wear unattractive, rough, magenta-coloured saris for the rest of their lives. There was the ‘punishment’ motive, because the elder males in the family blamed the young widow for causing her husband’s untimely death through her ‘evil’ influence.” Later on his life, the progressive thinking and dedicated Hermant returns to India and describes a religious pilgrimage yet cleverly avoids the overzealous faith syndrome, “…we threaded our way through the throng of pilgrims towards the Ganga temple. We had to leave our sandals at a booth for a small charge, since leather footwear causes spiritual pollution at a temple. No-one said anything about the physical pollution caused by human excrement and the holy cow shit.”

‘Beyond my wildest Dreams’ is a valuable autobiography for anyone seeking to delve deeper into the understanding of the origins of Hindu traditions and culture, whilst embodying modernity. The reader experience the emotional journey endured by one man, one that so many can empathise with, a journey that has affected the lives of so many in successive generations.