Forgotten Kings : In Conversation with Author Changez Jan.
It's a pleasure to have him join me in this conversation around the book. Hello, Changez. Thank you so much for joining in. What made you zero in on the story of the Hindu Sahi Dynasty for your book? You have also mentioned in a recent article that you initially considered writing historical fiction but ended up writing about history narrated as a story. Could you perhaps talk a little bit about this?
Changez Jan
@ChangezJan · 3:10
I just want to state the facts, give all the information and let the reader decide for themselves whether they think that whether the subject, like the king was a good king or not a good king. This was just my objective
Thank you so much for sharing that. That was so interesting. So bankers who write are not all that common. At least I haven't come across many. So how did you get into writing a book of historical nonfiction? Was writing a book something you always wanted to do, or was it just happenstance?
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Changez Jan
@ChangezJan · 2:35
So I think I just put two and two together, and that's why I ended up writing this book. The first part of your question where you were asking about banker writers, there are probably not that many bankers who write about history. I mean, banking is something I'm passionate about. I've been doing it for a long time, and that's my day job. But I have other passions in my life. One of them is history
When I did a bit of reading up on the subject, I realized that it was only after successive kings of the Sahi Dynasty were defeated that invaders could enter India's western frontiers and create mayhem during the medieval period. Despite this, the Sahi Dynasty does not feature prominently in the history books written by most Indian historians and are only briefly mentioned by those who have taken note of their presence. Why do you think this is so?
Changez Jan
@ChangezJan · 3:07
For me, actually, the Hindu Shais and those that came before and those that came after, all part of the history of my province. And I feel it should be shared and the truth should be told. People should be allowed to judge for themselves what they feel is important or not important. In other parts of India, the contemporaries of the Shahis also did not give much support to the Shahi dynasty
Lastly, I'd love to hear what you're working on next. And if you're not yet on to your next project, which would be understandable, considering the book has just very recently come out, I would love to hear about anything else that currently has you intellectually occupied and may influence what work we can look forward to from you next
Changez Jan
@ChangezJan · 3:24
Ah, as I mentioned, you know, I am very passionate about history, especially the history of my province, Hebrew, and of my hometown, Peshawar. The first book, the Hindu Shai about the Hindu shai kings, the forgotten kings, was published in India by Simon and Schuster. It will soon be published in Pakistan by a publishing company called Folio Books. I have written a second book. It's about ah anavran poet or the most famous poet of Pashto called Hoshal Khan Hatuk
