Tracing History through Fiction
Anup Singh Beniwal
KHANZADA: TUGHLUQ, SAADAT, LODHI AUR MUGHAL RAJVANSH SE LOHA LENEWALE MEWATIYON KI GAATHA Bhagwandas Morwal Rajkamal Prakashan, 2021, 391 pp., 399.00
June 2021, volume 45, No 6

Past is a land of possibilities—creative, discussive, interpretive. The seductive aura of its myriad ifs and buts has always kept creative imaginations in thrall. Novelists have often latched on to its narrative possibilities to augment their fictionality and make a meaningful intervention in the present.  Bhagwandas Morwal’s novel, Khanzada, a creative-imaginative take on the history of Mewat, is ostensibly informed by this novelistic inspiration and aspiration.

Morwal’s is a unique voice in Hindi literature. Through his novelistic milestones like Kala Pahad, Babal Tera Des Mein, Ret and Halala among others, he has continuously replenished the Hindi fictionscape with the sights, sounds and sensibility of Mewat at the cross-section of tradition and modernity. While retaining his distinctive signature, Morwal, through his latest novel Khanzada, has added yet another layer to his organically evolving narrative oeuvre on Mewat—a slice of history.

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