Sonu Kumar Kushwaha

Dadra & Nagar Haveli. Endowed with nature's munificence, it's a land of spell-binding beauty... green forests, winding rivers, unimaginable waterfronts, gentle gurgle of streams, distant dotting mountain ranges, a gorgeous kaleidoscope of flora and fauna... Owing to its serenity and quaint sylvan surroundings, this territory is a heaven for those who hunt around for a tranquil holiday. In order to keep the English at bay and to enlist their support against the Mughals, the Marathas made friends with the Portuguese and signed a treaty in 1779. According to this historic treaty of friendship, the Maratha-Peshwa agreed that the Portuguese will be allowed to collect revenue from Dadra and Nagar Haveli which consisted of 72 villages, then known as parganas in compensation for their loss of a warship called  " Santana "    which had earlier been captured by the Marathas but not surrendered to the Portuguese inspite of their many entreaties. These territories were ea

ABOUT LAKSHADWEEP “Lakshadweep, the group of 36 islands is known for its exotic and sun-kissed beaches and lush green landscape. The name Lakshadweep in Malayalam and Sanskrit means ‘a hundred thousand islands’. ” India’s smallest Union Territory Lakshadweep is an archipelago consisting of 36 islands with an area of 32 sq km. It is a uni-district Union Territory and comprises of 12 atolls, three reefs, five submerged banks and ten inhabited islands. The islands have a total area of 32 sq km. The capital is Kavaratti and it is also the principal town of the UT. All Islands are 220 to 440 km away from the coastal city of Kochi in Kerala, in the emerald Arabian Sea. The natural landscapes, the sandy beaches, abundance of flora and fauna and the absence of a rushed lifestyle enhance the mystique of Lakshadweep. Click here to know more  

Land and People The Andaman and Nicobar Islands were shrouded in mystery for centuries because of their inaccessibility. These are the paragon of beauty and present a landscape full with scenic and picturesque extravaganza. These islands shimmer like emeralds in the Bay of Bengal. The dense forest which cover these islands and the innumerable exotic flowers and birds create a highly poetic and romantic atmosphere. "Here the white beaches on the edge of a meandering coastline have palm trees that sway to the rhythm of the Sea. The beat of tribal drums haunt the stillness and technicolour fish steer their way through crystal clear water." This addition of strangeness to beauty which is responsible for creating the infinite romantic impact may be described in the following famous lines of Keats. "Charmed magic casement opening on the foam Of perilous seas in fair lands forlorn." The scenic beauty of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, would create a sense of dissa

                                        I was born into a middle-class Tamil family in the island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras state. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much formal education nor much wealth; despite these disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall the exact number of people she fed every day, but I am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with us than all the members of our own family put together. My parents were widely regarded as an ideal couple. My mother’s lineage was the more distinguished, one of her forebears having been bestowed the title of ‘Bahadur’ by the British. I was one of many children—a short boy with rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house, which was built in the middle of the 19th century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of limestone and brick, on

                              CHAPTER 1                       AHMEDNAGAR FORT         Ahmadnagar Fort, 13th April 1944 IT IS MORE THAN TWENTY MONTHS SINCE WE WERE BROUGHT HERE, more than twenty months of my ninth term of imprisonment. The new moon, a shimmering crescent in the darkening sky, greeted us on our arrival here. The bright fortnight of the waxing moon had begun. Ever since then each coming of the new moon has been a reminder to me that another month of my imprison- ment is over. So it was with my last term of imprisonment which began with the new moon, just after the Deepavali, the festival of light. The moon, ever a companion to me in prison, has grown more friendly with closer acquaintance, a reminder of the loveli- ness of this world, of the waxing and waning of life, of light following darkness, of death and resurrection following each other in interminable succession. Ever changing, yet ever the same, I have watched it in its different phases and

Prologue Some people are good at taking decisions. I am not one of them. Some people fall asleep quickly at night. I am not one of them either. It is 3 in the morning. I have tossed and turned in bed for two hours. I am to get married in fifteen hours. We have over 200 guests in the hotel, here to attend my grand destination wedding in Goa. I brought them here. Everyone is excited. After all, it is the first destination wedding in the Mehta family. I am the bride. I should get my beauty sleep. I can’t. The last thing I care about right now is beauty. The only thing I care about is how to get out of this mess. Because, like it often happens to me, here I am in a situation where I don’t know what the fuck is going on. What do you mean, not enough rooms?’ I said to Arijit Banerjee, the lobby manager of the Goa Marriott. ‘See, what I am trying to explain is. . .’ Arijit began in his modulated, courteous voice when mom cut him off. ‘It’s my daughter’s wedding. Are you going

    Prologue 'They are your journals, you read them, ’I said to him. He shook his head. ‘Listen, I don’t have the time or patience for this, ’I said, getting irritated. Being a writer on a book tour doesn’t allow for much sleep— I had not slept more than four hours a night for a week. I checked my watch. ‘It’s midnight. I gave you my view. It’s time for me to sleep now.’ ‘I want yon to read them, ’ he said. We were in my room at the Chanakya Hotel, Patna. This morning, he had tried to stop me on my way out. Then he had waited for me all  day; I had returned late at night to find him sitting in the hotel lobby. ‘Just give me five minutes, sir, ’ he had said, following me into the lift. And now here we were in my room as he pulled out three tattered notebooks from his backpack. The spines of the notebooks came apart as he plonked them on the table. The yellowing pages fanned out between us. The pages had handwritten text, mostly illegible as the ink had smudg

                                    Prologue On board IndiGo flight 6E766 HYD–DEL ‘Fasten your seatbelts, please. We are passing through turbulence,’ the flight attendant announced. Eyes shut, I fumbled to find the belt. I couldn’t. ‘Fasten your seatbelt, sir,’ the flight attendant personally reminded me. She looked at me like I was one of those dumb passengers who couldn’t follow simple instructions. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said. Where was the other end of my belt, anyway? My head hurt from a lack of sleep. I had spent the whole day in Hyderabad at an education conference and was on the last midnight flight back to Delhi. Damn, where the hell was my buckle? ‘You are sitting on your belt,’ the person next to me said. ‘Oh, stupid me!’ I said, finally clicking my belt shut. My eyes still refused to open. ‘Tough flight, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘I need a coffee.’ ‘No service at the moment—because of the turbulence,’ he said. ‘Going for an event?’