Mahaveer: The Soldier Who Never Died

by Rupa Srikumar and A.K. Srikumar

  1. ISBN: 978-93-5333-629-5
  2. Pages: 216 pages
  3. Date: 1st September

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining. If there is one action of India’s 1962 fiasco in the Northeast that counts as a moment to treasure, it is the battle of Nuranang. Sikhs, Rajputs, Gorkhas and Garhwalis all fought like tigers. But towering above their stories of courage is a saga of selfless love and indomitable courage. The actors on this brief stage were a Garhwali solider, and two anonymous Monpa girls.
This is the story of that legendary soldier, Jaswant Singh Rawat.
When Jaswant Singh Rawat arrives in Tawang with his battalion, he is already a hero for his
friends and colleagues. But his meeting with the sisters, Sela and Noora, transforms their lives and the history of a nation, in a way rarely seen before. Love blossoms, even as the dogs of war are unleashed. Will Jaswant’s love for his Monpa beloved win the day? Are Noora and Sela’s pristine affections doomed to be crushed under the boots of a marauding, relentless enemy? Will hate and jealousy triumph, or love conquer?

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK

Rupa Srikumar is a poet, translator and novelist. She has also written for the radio and the
stage. With her husband A.K. Srikumar, she has translated Yasmin Khalid Rafi’s Mohammed Rafi:
My Abba – A Memoir from Hindi to English. Her radio plays have been broadcast by the All
India Radio. Her adaptation of Jai Shankar Prasad’s Hindi play ‘Ajatashatru’ was staged in Delhi
University some years ago. Mahaveer is Rupa’s first novel.
A.K. Srikumar is a novelist, translator, poet and playwright. Srikumar also writes fiction for
children. Most of his nine children’s books won first or second prizes in the Children’s Book
Trust’s annual competition. Operation Polo (1997) was adjudged the ‘Best Children’s Book of the
Year’. Some of Srikumar’s poetry has been published by the Times of India. His play ‘Bhishma’ was
staged in Ahmedabad. The novels The Wonderful World of Nilayam Swamy (1981) and Conversations
with a Motor-cycle (1984) were published by Writers’ Workshop, Kolkata. His historical novel
The Begum’s Secret (2010) was long-listed for the Vodafone-Crossword Literary Prize. Srikumar’s
English translation of T.V. Varkey’s Malayalam classic Manju Pokunna Thalamurakal (The Vanishing
Generations) was published in September 2017.