Ram Sivasankaran wonders at the lack of in-depth analysis of the Marathas in history text books. “There are obvious elements about them that have been left out. The Marathas were seen as a temporary inconvenience to the Mughals. As a child, when you study history, you tend to look at the Marathas as nothing more than rebels.”
However Ram, the author of The Peshwa: The Lion and the Stallion , and the recently-launched sequel to the first book The Peshwa: The War of the Deceivers , which is a fictionalised story on Peshwa Baji Rao, emphasizes that the Marathas were not a rag-tag bunch of rebels. “The Peshwas had taken over nearly 60% of the country. Raghunath Rao took the empire till the reaches of Afghanistan. The reach of the Marathas went beyond the times of Chhatrapati Shivaji.”
In most interviews, Ram says he read about Napoleon and found striking similarities between the French statesman and military leader and Peshwa Bajirao. Though for research, he accessed secondary sources: Uday S Kulkarni’s The Era of Baji Rao and Baji Rao-The Warrior Peshwa by Jaiwant E Paul.
The Peshwa: The War of the Deceivers is a racy read. Every scene and character is so skilfully created that you want to finish the book in one reading. “I wanted to inspire children and young adults to genres that would excite them. With characterisation, I always try to think what is the motive of this character. I have kept the dialogues crisp and to the point so that it has more impact. With the plot, I start in the middle. The beginning of the book deals with the most iconic events in the history of the individual. I then relate it to subsidiary events and then the fictional aspects come in.” Ram’s favourite character in the book is not a man. “It is Kashi bai, Baji Rao’s first wife. She was a very resilient woman and a soldier in her own right. She balanced taking care of the Peshwa’s household and ran the civilian affairs of the Peshwa. She was a loyal wife and a capable administrator.”
Ram was born in Madras but spent most of his growing up years in The Middle East and the US. His fascination for Indian history, though, remained. He says he was always a writer, but when he moved to Oman as a child, he didn’t speak a word of English. “I was not nurtured in the language. I struggled a bit. But then I began to read voraciously and built a proficiency in English. I had written a story and my teacher liked it and asked me to recite the story to the class. I built a zest for reading and writing at that time itself,” says Ram, who has a dual masters degree from Stanford University, specialising in aeronautics, astronautics, space environment and plasma phenomena. Being a writer is not contrary to being a scientist, Ram explains. “In science you have to present facts and for that you need a command over the language.” Ram says he recently did an FB live chat with author Amish Tripathi. “We are working together on a book about Rajendra Chola.” The Peshwa: The War of the Deceivers is a Westland Publication.
