The author has arranged his introductory remarks in three parts. Part One is about Ibn Battuta and his Travels. Harvey provides some details about the wanderlust-bitten Moroccan qazi and places his account in the genre of medieval travel narratives.
The book is based on detailed and extensive readings of travel accounts in Persian related to India, Iran, and Central Asia that revelled in Indo-Persian culture. Focusing on a specific historical period that extends from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, this work comes across to us as the first comprehensive understanding of Safar nama, a genre of literature, not much studied by scholars.
For the last two decades, if not more, the Vedas have been in the news for all the wrong reasons, at the epicenter of discussions and debates that have been contentious, polemical and occasionally violent.
Structured into ten chapters, the book starts off with features of the main physiographic zones of the subcontinent, periodization, and changing interpretations of early Indian history. The first chapter constitutes a detailed discussion of literary and archaeological sources.
Cast firmly in the ‘Raj novel’ mould, The Splendor of Silence is set in the fictional state of Rudrakot, during the pre-Independence period. The author, Indu Sunderesan, blends history with romance in this fairly readable novel.
Descriptions of India are never complete; for some, she is a glass half full, while for others, a glass half empty. Adiga’s book is about the millions in India for whom the glass is always completely empty nor is there any hope that it ever will have any water!