It is the golden age of the Indian empire in the year... well, the year is not important. The brown man’s burden stretches from the temple of Angkor to the chapel of King’s. The fate of all mankind is in the hands of a seventeen-year-old maharaja whose ships rule the waves and armies occupy the four corners of the earth. But all is not well. In the small colony of England, an unassuming little white man decides to fight back. This is his story, the story of a man who, armed with only an umbrella and a newspaper-wrapped meal of fish and chips, led millions on the historic Dundee March, towards freedom, and himself into the pages of history as a Great Soul, the White Mahatma.
The Land of the Wilted Rose, the first book in The White Mahatma Quartet, is an allegorical work, a black comedy, but it is also a book that seeks to understand the psychological scars empires inflict on the vanquished, scars that fester, that remain unhealed.
About the Author
Anand Ranganathan read Chemistry at St. Stephen’s, Delhi, and thereafter went to Cambridge for his BA in Natural Sciences. He stayed on at Cambridge for his PhD and post-doctoral studies. After returning to India, he joined the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology at Delhi, where at present he is researching tuberculosis and dengue, among other things. The Land of the Wilted Rose is his debut novel. |
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The Land of The Wilted Rose