An excerpt from my book,” A Never-Ending Conflict”: After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Islamic Empire in India went into terminal decline. Peeved by the demeaning status of Muslims who ruled India for five centuries, Syed Ahmed tried to rejuvenate Islam in India in the 1880s. In the late 1910s,Continue Reading

Since ancient times, India was the diamond capital of India till South Africa emerged on the scene in the 18th century. Indian diamonds were most sought after due to their beauty and exceptional qualities. Hindus ascribed even magical and divine powers to them, with   Kohinoor being considered as Surya’sContinue Reading

Once, Shakespeare wondered loudly: What’s in the name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet. However, he couldn’t have been more wrong, at least in this part of the world, where a certain name in a certain situation can be a matterContinue Reading

The historians quietly forgot about the van-upvan of Vrindavan where Krishna played with gopis. Many of the gardens, natural as well as man-made, were used for celebrating numerous festivals like Holi, vasantotsava, Deepawali etc. The four styles of ancient Hindu gardens were udyan, paramadodvana, vrikshavatika, and nandanavana. Continue Reading

Abdul Mejid II, a Caliph, was made to sit in an ordinary train by Kamal Ataturk unceremoniously. First time in the Muslim world, Caliph was being treated so shabbily. Once upon a time, on his orders, lakhs of men used to be killed and women raped. He finally settled inContinue Reading

Tughlaq’s cousin Bahauddin was the governor of Sagar (south of Gulbarga, in present-day Karnataka), and somehow fell out of favour with Tughlaq. Consequently, Bahauddin had to run away and take shelter in Anegundi (Hampi). Contrary to common sense, he was treated with the utmost respect, given the status of aContinue Reading

The Elgin Marbles, designed and executed by Phidias to adorn the Parthenon, a temple of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis in Athens, are some of the most beautiful sculptures of ancient Greece during 447–438 BCE. At the peak of colonisation, there was a stampede among European powers to lootContinue Reading

Hindus have always been portrayed as a defensive and risk-averse community. They fought only when forced to do so, and as a result, they mostly ended up on the losing side. They never took the fight to the enemy’s camp and barring a few cases, they remained ensconced in theirContinue Reading

During the third Anglo-Mysore war in 1792 between the East India Company and Tipu Sultan of Mysore, Cowasjee, a Parsi bullock-cart driver and four other British soldiers were taken prisoner by the Sultan at Seringapatam, Karnataka. In a true barbaric Islamic way, their noses were cut off before releasing alongContinue Reading