For writing the Secret History sections, I have relied on what was taught to me in school and college, tales I heard over the years, comics thumbed through in childhood, and reports and opinion pieces in newspapers.
To refresh my memory, I consulted the followed books in particular: An Advanced History of India by R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Raychaudhuri and Kalikinkar Datta, popularly known as the three writers; Sources of Indian Tradition, Volume One, From the Beginning to 1800, edited by Ainslie T. Embree; Sources of Indian Tradition, Volume Two, Modern India and Pakistan, edited by Stephen Hay; Modern India 1885-1947 by Sumit Sarkar; Freedom Struggle by Bipan Chandra, Amales Tripathi and Barun De; Struggle for Pakistan: Tragedy of the Triumph of Muslim Communalism in India by Lal Bahadur and edited by J.C. Johari; The Hindu Phenomenon by Girilal Jain; The Sikhs by Patwant Singh; Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History by Romila Thapar; her essay, Somanatha and Mahmud, in Frontline (April 10-23, 1999); A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar – 1336-1646 AD) by Robert Sewell; Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India, by Lt Col James Tod; and, above all, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (1798-1939) by Albert Hourani.
I express my gratitude to all the writers listed above. They shouldn’t be associated with the assertions made in the Secret History sections. I provided a fictional spin to the historical details and accounts culled from their books.
The Quranic verses in the book have been excerpted from Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s The Meaning of the Holy Quran; and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s The Tarjuman Al-Quran, Volume 1, 2, 3, edited and rendered into English by Syed Abdul Latif.
The sentences in the brochure of HOPE were inspired by a similar advertisement which I read in the International Herald Tribune in Berlin, Germany, in 1995.
The incident involving the playing of tape-recorded sounds was reported in several newspapers in 1992. The dramatic imagination of it is mine.
The story, Married brothers sodomize sister’s lover, was reported in a Delhi-based newspaper and subsequently denied.
The phrase, How was she to liberate the present from the past …, which appears in Section Three, has been taken from what was the topic of a global essay competition organized by a foreign cultural centre. Its name I can’t recall. The topic of the essay competition was: How to liberate the present from the past and the future from the present?
For providing support too complex to describe: Jawed Ashraf, Pradeep Magazine, Rohit Mahajan, Akshaya Mukul, Sanjay Joshi, Kimman Balakrishnan, Chottu Mammu and Ghazala.
For not voicing her belief that writing a book is a meaningless endeavour: Mom.
For reading the first two sections of the book and providing suggestions and encouragement: Rukmini Bhaya Nair and Urvashi Butalia.
For turning the manuscript into the book that you hold in your hand: Keerti Ramachandra, a Big Thank You; and Arcopol Chaudhuri, for cleaning up and seeing it to the press.
For signing me on and her constant assurance, ‘The book will happen’: Karthika V.K.
For keeping the tea-kettle warm: Amin and Rahul.
For barking every time I dozed off: Aerie and Kutte.
For teaching me that sports is as important as writing: Humzaa. The football match in the book is dedicated to him.
For teaching me slowness: Shahla.