A New Mastani
MASTANI is unique book in that it is India’s first historical novel that offers its readers two endings, diagrammatically opposed to each other; the second one plugs all the holes left in the story of Mastani left by traditional renderings of the myths and legends that surround the second wife of Peshwa Baji Rao I, widely accepted as India’s answer to Napoleon Bonaparte as a unbeaten general. Congratulations are due to Mr. Kapish Mehra of Rupa Publications for allowing this to happen. As a history buff, every reading of Maratha history left me bewildered at the steadfastness of historians in never failing to mention Mastani as leading influence in Baji Rao’s life; and then leaving that mention as a single sentence or paragraph without any elaboration of such a ‘towering’ personality, so to speak. Hence the research that went on and on and on to explode all the myths and legends that surround Mastani, to expose her tragedy, her true character and her royal...