Like most Anglo-Indian women of her generation, she has lived all her life in India and has never been to Britain. But she converses only in English. At school, she said, she learned a little Latin and French and enough “kitchen Bengali” to speak to servants.

Before 1947, when the British left India, Anglo-Indians  also known at the time as half-castes, blacky-whites and eight annas (there were 16 annas in a rupee, the official currency of India)  formed a distinct community of 300,000 to 500,000 people. Most were employed in the railroads and other government services, and many lived in railroad towns built for them by the British, where their distinctive culture, neither Indian nor British, flourished.

But today that culture is fading fast, with Mrs. Martyr’s generation perhaps its last torchbearers.

No one is certain how many Anglo-Indians live in India today; they were last counted in a census in 1941. Intermarriage and successive waves of emigration after Indian independence are thought to have reduced their number to 150,000 at most, said Robyn Andrews, a social anthropologist at Massey University in New Zealand.

The children and grandchildren of those who stayed have become increasingly assimilated, marrying Indians without European ancestors and adopting local languages.

The president of India appoints two Anglo-Indian members of Parliament each session to ensure that the tiny community has political representation. The culture lives on, somewhat, in Anglo-Indian dishes like country chicken, a tangy dish seasoned with garlic and ginger, and pepper water, a spicy tomato-chili sauce, ladled on rice with meat on the side.