Little dum in this nawabi pulao

To be honest, if you so much as dangle the carrot of Lucknow in front of me, my senses tingle. I think there are few town-cities in the world more magical than Lucknow. Something in the air there smells of history. And it isn’t a musty history: the language rings with poetry, the parks are lush, interesting spaces that fill your mind with pictures and stories, the streets are doused in aromas of food, and, creeping up on the Bara Imambara on a quiet, rainy night conjures up romance like it does nowhere else. Above all, though, is that the history compels you, draws you in — unlike other old cities where you often just have the sense of being on the fringes of a time far, far away.

The Begum's Secret
AK Srikumar
Penguin
Rs 299

So when I got hold of a book that claimed to set out a canvas as vast and busy, as spicy and complex, expectations were high indeed. The Begum’s Secret wasn’t just a novel about Lucknow — it’s a novel that claims to draw you into Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula’s palace: The famine and poverty of the fading Awadhi state, the court intrigues, the smoke and politics stirred up by the visit of Viceroy Warren Hastings; stories inside the harem, the relationships between the Nawab and his wives, the relationships his wives have with others, the way these relationships are played by others in the palace and outside. And more — the poetry and the food, the language and the lifestyle, and the evocation of a most significant moment in a princely capital.

Full review here Deccan Chronicle