Thomas Langlois Lefroy
In 1796, Lefroy began a flirtation with English novelist Jane Austen, who was a friend of an older female relative. Jane Austen wrote two letters to her sister Cassandra mentioning "Tom Lefroy", and some have suggested that it may have been he whom Austen had in mind when she invented the character of Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice", as the courtship between Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen took place over the year or so that "Pride and Prejudice" was written. In his 2003 biography, "Becoming Jane Austen", Jon Spence suggests that Jane Austen actually used her and Tom LeFroy's personalities as the models for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, but not in an expected way. Spence suggests that Jane Austen used Tom Lefroy's more gregarious personality as the model for the novel's heroine Elizabeth Bennet, and her own measured demeanor was used as the model for the male protagonist, Mr. Darcy. So while the exact influence of Tom Lefroy on "Pride and Prejudice" continues to be debated, it does seem certain that his presence in Austen's life is in some way reflected in the novel.
Jane Austen in popular culture
The global appeal of Austen today can be seen in that Bollywood regularly produces versions of Austen's books reset in modern India and adjusted to the style of Indian films, which forbid kissing and always include a number of musical numbers regardless of whether they have any connection to the plot. Austen's books often feature match-making parents, which gives her stories a particular resonance in India, where the majority of marriages are still arranged today. The British colony of India, which was ruled by the East India Company until 1858, and as a Crown colony from 1858 to 1947, came to include all of modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. English as an academic discipline began in 19th century India as British officials of the Raj set out to teach English to their Indian subjects, and as a result, any middle-class Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi from the time of the Raj until the present is familiar with Austen's books, giving her books the sort of "cultural capital" appeal in modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh similar to the United States. Austen's stories which feature "love marriages" as the heroine marries a man with whom she falls in love with, and gains the approval of her parents in the process, are very popular with women from middle-class Indian families, the vast majority of whom are in or are destined for arranged marriages set up by their parents to men that they generally don't know. In India, "Sense and Sensibility" has turned into the 2000 Tamil language film "Kandukondain Kandukondain" and the 2014 Hindi language soap opera "Kumkum Bhagya"; "Emma" has adopted as the 2010 film "Aisha"; and "Pride and Prejudice" into the 2004 film "Bride and Prejudice". In "Bride and Prejudice", Elizabeth Bennet becomes Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai), the daughter of a Sikh grandee living in a decaying mansion left over by the Raj in Amritsar; Mr. Darcy is an American billionaire visiting the Punjab to attend a wedding; Mr. Bingley becomes Mr. Balraj, a second generation Indo-British lawyer who has come to the Punjab in search of a traditional Sikh woman to marry; Lieutenant Wickham becomes Johnny Wickham, a British backpacker looking for the "real India"; and Mr. Collins becomes Mr. Kholi, a sanctimonious Sikh who has made a fortune in Silicon Valley.