 Burgess operated more in the mode of Orwell, who had a good command of Urdu and Burmese (necessary for Orwell's work as a police officer) and Kipling, who spoke Hindi (having learnt it as a child).Like many of his fellow English expatriates in Asia, Burgess had excellent spoken and written command of his operative language(s), both as a novelist and as a speaker, including Malay.Burgess's repatriate years (c. 1960–69) produced "Enderby" and "The Right to an Answer," which touches on the theme of death and dying, and "One Hand Clapping," a satire on the vacuity of popular culture.