Dressed in a floral tea-dress, at a retirement home for Anglo-Indians in Kolkata, Rita McDonald, who is 85, is a poignant reminder of Britain's two-century rule over the Indian subcontinent. Like many Anglo-Indians, members of a Eurasian community spawned during the Raj, she eats bacon and eggs for breakfast, speaks precise English and, though she has lived all her life in India, knows little Hindi or Bengali. Yet her home, hung with yellowing photographs of Queen Elizabeth and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is thick with tales of poverty and loss.
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