Vrinda Pandey asked Indu Sundaresan:

Hey Indu, Just finished reading both the books and awaiting the last to arrive , they are beautiful read. How much of fiction has gotten into writing these ? And also do you think history is always written from writers perspective and hence there is not much written and talked about Rajputs /Nizams etc which were also existing in the same era though not talked about much ?

Indu Sundaresan Thank you, Vrinda! I hope you've had a chance to read SHADOW PRINCESS by now. I'll say about 70% of the novels of the Taj trilogy are based on fact and historical documentation. Naturally, the scenes, the dialogues are fictional, from my imagination, but history sparked those scenes.

In THE FEAST OF ROSES, there is this pivotal chess game between Mehrunnisa (who's trying to establish her power in the harem and at court) and Mahabat Khan (one of the most powerful ministers at court). That scene's entirely fictional. But, what is fact is that earlier, Mahabat went to Emperor Jahangir and berated him for letting a woman (Mehrunnisa) make decisions for him. And what is also fact is that about a month after this talk, Mahabat is sent to Kabul (on the outer fringe of India's Mughal Empire) as Governor, which was an odd posting for a man meant to be near the Emperor.

My guess is that Mehrunnisa made this happen--sent Mahabat into virtual exile, so to speak. So, I constructed this chess scene (and had an enormous amount of fun doing so, which you see when you read that scene) in which she lets Mahabat know that she's powerful and influential. She trounces him in the game, and then banishes him from court.

So, here's your fact, and your fiction in one part of THE FEAST OF ROSES.

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