Roshni hehe koi problem nahi hain...main bhi bharat se hi hoon...utna thin skin hota to class 5 me hi worn out ho gya hota :p

Roshni Re: # 9

Hey ajeha

Thanks so much for your concern. I'm glad to find well-wishers so early on. Fear not, I have already kept my options open. I've tread the path. I'm doing software and econs and mba and so on, so I don't have relly on getting "published" on chowk. Besides this piece already won a prize at the Deccan Herald short-story writing competition, and I've written a couple of cover articles for their sunday supplement already.

So here then is the real conundrum. I don't mean to be rude of course, but you will NEVER be a literary critic of much stature. That it because you confuse the idea of an exploration with that of an judgement. Stories will never have much meaning to you then (and neither will much else).

Roshni Hi all

Thanks for the enthusiastic welcome! Actually I just discovered the site today and I was completely amazed at the high quality of the writings here. There is so much good stuff, so much creativity and skill (also so much angst lol)

To Naqshbandi:
I think it had been after the wiki-surfing that reading The Last Mughal by William Darymple inspired. That book is about bahadur shah but there are stories about Jehanara and Aurangzeb and Shah Jehan mentioned as well.

Actually the footnote is lost to me as well, but the basic idea was that firstly that transition era was incredibly dramatic, no less than the roman transition from Caeser to Octavian...secondly, for me Aurangzeb is a bit of a pivot in subcontinental history...and I think thats partly why he evokes such strong reactions...

From what I've read I believe that he was a very intelligent, strong-willed man, in a way a very moral man...but I think he took himself a bit too seriously...that may not seem like much of an accusation, but there is a reason politicians weave and snake and flip-flop. In the the end a successful politician/ruler must reflect his people's opinions, not stand true to his principles. I don't think he was anti-hindu. But I do think he wanted a stronger (maybe more centralized) state than maybe was possible at that time in India.

Also he was so powerful, and didn't die for so long, that when he finally did, there was a complete power vacuum. I think more than anything else, this might have caused the future collapse. I think the two fronts in which the mughals really failed and that caused the current history of the sub-continent, was naval strength and coming up with a structure for the transfer of power.

I must warn though, that I'm no historical expert.

As for history, at least in India, a good 60-70% of the history taught is...presented to further a motive. Mostly the motive is to unify the vastly different people of India (who spent most of their history warring against each other), but in this regard it can throw up some odd angles to view events and people and causes.

I spent two days in shock when I first discovered how wrong the taught history is. And how blandified. They really tried to take away the parts showing Indian people fighting each other, and had to go to large lengths to do so.

Fake hmmm I loved it...I'm seriously surprised...I just found this site and I'm completely fidaa...there's so much good stuff here..

i loved the experimental style of this story...and the just below the surface passion...

are you a writer/journalist kinda thing? I wish more writers here had written bios...i'm curious