Gold and Silver was written originally as a radio play at the time of an exchange project with the Royal National Theatre. It was required to be within 45 minutes, so it can be called a long short play. It was expanded later into a stage play. The play draws on images in a memory bank from the Railway townships in pre-independence British India. It stops there. The content of the play is not meant to be autobiographical, although it must be admitted that separating memories from personal experience in telling a tale is not an easy task. Equally, it must be clear that Miss Taylor is largely a fictitious person, but inspired by memories of a real life person all the same. It could be said that the play was in the making somewhere in the back of the head for a very long time. It was first written as a short piece at the time of India’s Golden Jubilee of independence in 1997 as a little gift for friends in the Royal National Theatre in London. Bangalore Little Theatre had an exchange programme with the National to celebrate the Golden Jubilee. The rah-rah of fifty years of Indian Independence served as an interesting but incidental backdrop.