THE MINIATURIST
Kunal Basu
Penguin
Pages: 245
Price: Rs 250
The rich fount of history, tradition and myth in India, which should be the basis for so much literature, has rarely been exploited, beyond the angst of recent writings that go back to remembered memories circa the Raj or, increasingly, Partition.
There have been attempts at parochially defined areas of interest, chiefly about communities, or cultures, but rarely has the tapestry of tales been allowed to encounter more ancient lives.
Thankfully, Kunal Basu seems ready to tread that path, having moved his protagonist from opium babu in his first book, The Opium Clerk, to a painter of miniatures in the Mughal court of Akbar.
The choice is entirely enviable: a court painter would have access to the rich and powerful, be cognisant of social mores, expected to participate in the gossip that enlightened the smoky lanes outside the ramparts of the Mughal forts, and in the role of the illustrator-scribe, be both insider and outsider privy to intrigue, strategy and information
