Santha Rama Rau

Santha Rama Rau Biography

Santha Rama Rau was an American writer of Indian origin. She originally belongs to Chennai. She was the daughter of Sir Benegal Rama Rau, the fourth Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Dhanvanthi Rama Rau, Padma Bhushan winner and the founder president of Family Planning Association of India. She was formerly married to Faubion Bowers, noted academic and writer in the area of Asian Studies, concentrated on to Japanese Theatre, which ended in a divorce. The couple had one son. Later she married Gurdon B. Wattles, and had no children. She settled in England and passed away in 2009. Her husband passed away in 1995.

As an author, she is best known for authoring India’s Landscape and Psyche, apart from several other works. She has also authored many non-fictional books about India - “This Is India” (1953), “The Cooking of India” (1970) to name a few. She co-authored Rajmatha Gayatri Devi’s autobiography work - "A Princess Remembers", published in the year 1976. Gayatri Devi is one of the most beautiful women from India whose name was listed by the Vogue among the ‘Most beautiful women of the world’, and a favourite of society columnists and photographers.

Santha Rama Rau was born in Chennai into an intellectual family in 1923 to Sir Benegal Rama Rau and Dhanvanthi Rama Rau; both were very famous people. Her grandfather, Benegal Raghavendra Rau was one of the earliest Indian doctors educated in western medicine. Her maternal uncles, Benegal Narsing Rau was a renowned civil servant and Benegal Shiva Rao, was an eminent journalist and Parliamentarian.

She moved to England with her father at the age of 6 where she received western education and later became a journalist.  As a writer, Home to India was her first book published before Indian independence, while she was in England. She moved to Japan, when her father was appointed as the first ambassador to Japan and there she met Faubion Bowers. As a writer, some of her noted works are East of Home, This is India, Remember the House, My Russian Journey, Gifts of Passage, The Adventuress, and the most famous - A Princess Remembers: the memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur.

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Updated: March 06, 2016