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Rrashima Swaarup Verma on her historical non-fiction 'The Royal Scandal - A love story that changed the power dynamics in British India'.
The book went on to top the charts within hours of its release and has become a bestseller since its launch. Rashima is a senior corporate professional and a prolific columnist novelist as well as an award winning speaker, and it's a delight to have her join me as we discuss her book and her writing journey. Hello, Rashima. Welcome to swell. It's wonderful to have you here today. What fascinated you so much about the Kirkpatrick Khair-un-nissa love story as to base an entire book around it?
Rrashima Verma
@Rrashima · 1:46
And then when he told me about it, I was equally intrigued. In fact, I knew for a fact that this is something that needs to be told. It was a rich piece from Indian history and not something that everyone knew about. Also, it was a lesser known story. And it was a heady mix of emotions. It was a heady cocktail of there was romance in it. There was war in it. There was politics. And of course, it was like a Game of Thrones
Thank you so much for that. Beneath the familiar story of British conquest and rule in India, there's a largely unwritten story about the Indian conquest of the British imagination, of how several Englishmen eagerly took to local customs, studied Indian philosophy, and adopted the ways of the Mughals whom they had come to replace. During your research, did you come across any other such interesting yet lesser known stories of multiculturalism from this period?
Rrashima Verma
@Rrashima · 2:33
You. Thanks, Ramya. That's another superb question. And during the course of the research that I undertook to write this book, I discovered many interesting characters. Of course, we all know that James Ashilas Kirkpatrick was born in India. He spent many years in this country, and he had in fact, not only did he adopt many of our cultures and traditions, but he actually had an intrinsic love and respect for the country and its people. So he was very fluent
Thank you for that. Rrashima karen Assa was said to be an uncommonly beautiful, noble woman of the time, and it was fascinating to know how, by sheer will, breaking the barriers of age, religion, politics and cultural differences, she went on to be with the love of her life. I think she's a great example of a woman who challenged societal norms at a time when it would have been quite nearly impossible
Rrashima Verma
@Rrashima · 3:11
I made sure that every bit of information that I was lucky enough to find about her, I validated it through alternative sources. And people were very kind. And they were very kind with their knowledge. They were kind with their time. All the people I spoke to, there were multiple sources I tapped into. And I think what I was able to really do is to give my readers quite a lifelike picture about this very beautiful, very impressive woman called Keradesa
Thank you so much for that. My final question to you is about your publishing journey. I've come across quite a few writers who have said that they've had to shell books that they were working on for months and years for one reason or the other. Sometimes they've had to take what was working and rewrite it and reshape it altogether. And many of them have also shared that finding an agent and pitching your book to a publisher can be one of the hardest times of your life
Rrashima Verma
@Rrashima · 4:34
I was so fascinated. I knew that this was something that I simply had to write. And, yeah, thereafter, we started the process of writing the book. There was a lot of research that I had to undertake, and that I thoroughly enjoyed because research is my forte. And so Hale was there with me every step of the way. He was guiding me, he was supporting me, he was encouraging me
So thank you for writing the book and thank you for coming on to the Swell community and talking about it. I shall go ahead and share the Amazon link to the book in the description for our listeners to check out. I really look forward to having you back on Swell for more search conversations around your I think, cheers
Rrashima Verma
@Rrashima · 0:57
This true tale of love, politics and war from India's rich history, I think, is a book that needs to be read because it's a piece of our history, and it's a heady cocktail of all the emotions that two people in love go through. It has a lot of pathos, it has a lot of passion, and I hope that every reader will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. So thank you very much