AUTHOR’S NOTE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It was a newspaper column that inspired the chapters in this book. In September 2016 the then editor of Mint Lounge , Sanjukta Sharma, asked me to commence a weekly column for her. We called it ‘Medium Rare’, and though I was meant to cover a series of themes, it was only a little while before my focus came to be firmly anchored in my principal interest: history.
That turn has proved rewarding in multiple ways, and the generous acceptance the column received led Karthika V.K. of Context, who also edited and published my first book, The Ivory Throne (2015), to suggest compiling the essays in book form. I must confess that as someone whose books so far have been not only voluminous but also heavily annotated and footnoted, I had reservations about writing in a new format and putting together such a collection.
And yet, the idea did also appeal. The original drafts of my Mint Lounge articles were often much longer, pruned down afterwards to fit the allocated space in print. These long versions could sit well, I reasoned, in a book, allowing an enthusiast of history to dip in and out more freely, unlike my previous work which requires a more sustained immersion. They were also a way for me to present episodes from Indian history which so appealed to me that week after week I looked forward to retelling them for readers of my column.
I do, however, recognise that there may be flaws in such a format covering so many subjects. Some contents of this book are sourced from primary archival material—the Savarkar and the Vellore Mutiny essays for instance. Others are from secondary sources—books, old and new, that I found compelling. But I have taken care to ensure that they are almost all rooted in material verified in peer-reviewed journals and not neglectful of the latest academic research. Many established names will therefore be visible in the notes: names such as Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Arjun Appadurai, Sunil Khilnani, Ashutosh Varshney, A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Richard Eaton, David Shulman, A.K. Ramanujan and others.
There may yet be weaknesses. For these I am solely responsible.
My thanks, however, I owe to many people: Anindita Ghose of Mint Lounge and Somak Ghoshal who have been my editors over the last two years, and the wider team involved in the process, including Vikram Shah, Anindita Satpathy, Anandi Mishra, Tanushree Ghosh, Rohit Ranjan, Chandrika Mago, Nipa Charagi and Anindita D. I have never ceased to be amazed by the stringent fact-checking at Mint Lounge , and their insistence on sources for even passing remarks has ensured the maintenance of high standards.
Thanks are due also to Sukumar Ranganathan, formerly editor of Mint proper, Vaishna Roy of The Hindu , Poonam Saxena of Hindustan Times , Nandini Nair of Open , Dhanya Rajendran and Anna Isaac of The News Minute and Soumya Bhushan of Mathrubhumi .
So too am I grateful to friends who have often joined me as I set out to explore places or discuss history: Uzair Siddiqui, who accompanied me in the quest to locate the tombs of Awadh’s begums in London and Paris, Sidharth Gokhale, off whom I bounced ideas in Pune, Sharat Sunder Rajeev, a repository of knowledge in Thiruvananthapuram, and my esteemed friends, Prof P. Vijayakumar and the writer, Khyrunnisa A., whose advice and sincere interest in my welfare has been most gratifying. Thanks are also owed to Colonel Balasubramanian in Pune, and Rukmini Varma, Jay Gopal Varma and Sandeep and Gitanjali Maini in Bengaluru for their unfailing support. In New Delhi, the untiring and prolific Shashi Tharoor has never tired of encouraging me, for which I remain immensely grateful.
At Context/Westland, besides my wonderful editor, V.K. Karthika, I am thankful to Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Shrutika Mathur, Ajitha G.S., Karthik Venkatesh, and the rest of the team, as well as to Shyama Warner who brought her patience and fine eye to bear on the text. Priya Kuriyan has not only demonstrated her prodigious talent through the illustrations in this book but has also been exceedingly kind and patient with me. My friend Satyajit V. Patil took it upon himself to take a series of pictures for the author page, a challenge that can ordinarily frustrate even a seasoned photographer.
This book is dedicated to my father, M.S. Pillai, whom I lost in January this year. What is owed to him cannot be easily condensed into words. He never fully read my previous books, but he did follow—and send me regular feedback on—my columns in Mint Lounge . In that sense, I am glad that it is this collection that serves as my tribute to him and his memory.
Finally, my thanks to Pushpa and Indrani. Without them I would neither have read a book nor picked up the pen, let alone waded into the fascinating world of Indian history.
MANU S. PILLAI
May 2019
The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin Page 29