The tall handsome Abdul Karim was just twenty-four years old when he arrived in England from Agra to wait at tables during Queen Victorias Golden Jubilee. An assistant clerk at Agra Central Jail he suddenly found himself a personal attendant to the Empress of India herself. Within a year he was established as a powerful figure at court becoming the queens teacher or Munshi & instructing her in Urdu & Indian affairs. Devastated by the death of John Brown her Scottish ghillie the queen had at last found his replacement. But her intense & controversial relationship with the Munshi led to a near-revolt in the royal household. Victoria & Abdul" examines how a young Indian Muslim came to play a central role at the heart of the empire & his influence over the queen at a time when independence movements in the sub-continent were growing in force. Yet at its heart it is a tender love story between an ordinary Indian & his elderly queen a relationship that survived the best attempts to destroy it."