The 1911 Delhi Durbar was the third and the last, and a very special one. It was an event of many historical firsts—the first time Delhi took over from Calcutta as India's capital, the first time a reigning British monarch visited India in person, and the first time an Indian king openly defied the British monarch outside of a war. The king in question was Sayajirao Gaekwad. From here onwards, his story was a story of defiance and insubordination with the most cautious mix of diplomacy. Ho...

The 17th-century Jagat Seths are often referred to as India's Medicis for their wealth. Rich enough to sponsor the British win at Plassey, they were India's largest moneylenders of their time. The bull run came to an end with the execution of its patriarchs in 1763. With the single largest source of loans gone the British were soon scrambling for funds to pay for expensive military campaigns. One such campaign against Tipu Sultan proved back-breaking expensive and led to the establishment ...

She was born to a nautch girl from the dingy alleys of Old Delhi, raised in a tiny hamlet in Haryana, abused as a kid, orphaned before she was ten, and bought to be a concubine before entering her teens. And yet, she beat every odd Providence threw her way and went on to become a queen who would rule one of the wealthiest territories in the Mughal realm for over five decades. This is the story of Begum Samru, the biggest success story that history almost forgot.

History recorded him as the Butcher of Amritsar. On April 13, 1919, General Reginald Dyer ordered his men to open indiscriminate fire at a crowd of peaceful protesters in Jallianwala Bagh killing over a thousand right away. While this happened in Amritsar, a young Urdu poet in Aligarh dreamed of what would come to be known as purna swaraj or complete independence. This is the story of how the two men crossed paths to cost the British Empire its crowning jewel.

Mahatma Gandhi's assassination was a culmination of many events and many actors that never enjoyed the centerstage in the broader discourse. Yes, Nathuram Godse pulled that trigger, but a lot more went into the project than just that. There was a disgraced barrister, a former Air Force officer, and an Indian army officer returning from Ethiopia after chasing out Mussolini's armies. Here, we'll take a roller-coaster ride along the chain of events that came together to equip the assassinatio...

More than two hundred years ago, a Muslim boy from Bihar lost his father, enlisted with the East India Company and set off on a voyage that took him to remote corners of India. By the late 1700s, he arrived in England and floated two business ventures — an Indian restaurant and a bathhouse. This is the story of the man who rose from the boonies of colonial India and introduced the world to one of its most ubiquitous pieces of toiletry, the shampoo.

In the context of Christianity in India, few conversations ever invoke Agra; even fewer invoke the Mughals. Yet, one of the oldest churches on the subcontinent not only belongs to this city but only came about with enthusiastic Mughal patronage. Patronage that was neither political, nor commercial. Instead, it was an honest expression of intrigue, respect, and acceptance of a religion alien to the land. In and of itself, this was a rarity in Mughal India. This story explores the journey of...

On February 22, 1937, the Time magazine featured him on its cover as the wealthiest individual on the planet, a position he's believed to have held his entire life. At his peak, his net worth was the equivalent of $77 billion in today's money. He used a 184-carat diamond worth over $70 million as a paperweight. And yet, he once refused to buy himself a new blanket because even the cheapest exceeded his budget by a mere ten rupees. This is the story of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of H...

The Golden Temple of Amritsar has always been more than just a holy site. Throughout its chequered history, the complex has served as the undeniable seat of Sikh power, both theological as well as political. So when it was desecrated in 1984, it's only natural the entirety of North India burst into flames. But that wasn't the first time its sanctum sanctorum was invaded. Nor was Indira Gandhi its first antagonist. This is the story of one such raid that predates Operation Bluestar by three...

If the stories of Britain's affluence and American independence were boiled down to one single commodity, it has to be the humble ubiquitous tea. Although all of it first came from China, India is where the money to buy it came from. Sometime in the 18th century, this cash cow came down with a famine that killed two things — ten million Indians, and Britain's grip on the New World. This story explores how, and much more.

Aksai Chin is a barren wasteland that's disputed between India and China. Having caused at least one full-fledged war between the two nations already, the region continues to claim lives and resources like no other on the planet. This story charts the background to this problem tracing a line that cuts through 200 eventful years of politics and imperialism.

'Bold, incandescent, and as much an appraisal of human psychology as a dystopian tale'-Manu S. Pillai'This is a book for today's India and one of the best works of fiction in the Malayalam language.'-S. Hareesh'Varma tells a frightening tale about fascist subjugation and the ruthless course it adopts to achieve that subjugation.'-Paul ZachariaKerala, 1974. Rajesh, t...