The Last Mughal By William Dalrymple

The Last Mughal is a book which has been synchronously written and the usage of the language makes it a book that can be read without any hiccups.(looking up a dictionary for meanings) 

The facts put forward by this book are in complete contrast to what we know about the rising. The inclusion of cow and pig fat played a pivotal role but there were many factors that influenced the uprising which in popular tails fails to highlight.(great emphasis on conversion to Christianity for one)

The style of writing is beautiful, providing accounts of both the English and the Indians and the perils they faced and the hardships both the sides were put through during the uprising. This book from the start has been informative which sometimes was not easy to ingest. The slaughter of the English residents and the subsequent slaughter and war crimes that were carried out after the English took over Delhi. The killing of English children and women by the sepoys and the heartless act of Hodson to execute all the princes and then publicly hanging them after having stripped them, for 3 days are a few instances of the horrendous acts that took place in Delhi during the uprising.  

This book had all the important tales:  to save their skin a father in law and personal adviser bring about the end of a family that ruled India for 350 years, a wife plots against her step sons and the other wife(Taj Mahal) of Zafar to make sure her son ascends the throne and is declared the legal heir. How a King is as helpless and is a puppet in the hands of a few advisers, distant relatives and dominating Sepoy forces. 

At the same time he also showed the Indecision of a few English Generals who would have succumbed under pressure, if not for a few brave soldiers. Dalrymple made sure all the trivial details such as what happened to all the Mughal treasure and their wealth, the excerpts of a few Indian refugees who had escaped was mentioned along with the life of the royals in the aftermath of the siege.

The book has been all about the writing and the presentation of the facts in such a neutral manner that as a spectator you know whose acts were immoral and who was a victim of the wrongdoings of someone. The book also sheds light on the abject helplessness of the royals and the state of women in the aftermath(excerpts from Ghalib's memoirs). Dalrymple has also shown, how indecision and equivocation resulted in a free fall of whatever was left of a glorious empire.

Ambivalence is a sin while receding from a promise is even worse.

For those who want to learn a great deal about the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny this is the book which provides a very neutral perspective and is captivating at the same time.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

This book published in 1955 was scorned at for its very controversial subject and has ever since been in the  eye of the storm. This book for me was no way an erotic book. Yes, it has a lingering presence of child abuse throughout the book but it is after all a book about Love and Longing for a person.

I felt the protagonist H.H was not a heartless pedophile but a man who was scarred by the death of his childhood sweetheart, Annabel and looked for her among the children who played in the gardens and that gave him a sense of satisfaction and he wished to court them as he had once wished to court his Annabel. He seemed to have gone crazy and having grown into a man was still in love with his KID girlfriend and hence his tendencies.

The first part of the book was splendid and it kept me interested as to how he reached USA and found Annabel in Doloris. He had finally fallen in love again with Annabel, but a mere reincarnation of her as a 13 year old girl. H.H was indeed insolent as in one of the lines he says that he would court Lolita only for 3 years and then court the children she gives birth to. The way he traveled  all around the country with her and the way the author made sure that the entire USA was put into words for the readers to virtually live it through his book. But then those intricate details were stretched for far too long in the second part.

The second part lost the sheen and the glue the first part provided me with. The book started to get dull but it was still contained by a good piece of writing. This part paved a way for the development of insecurities in Humbert and how he wanted to keep Lo for himself and consisted of a little bit of  mystery as to who that man was. It also shows in one of the lines that Lo who initially hated Humbert and the love they made had started to accept that it as it was the only option she had and portrayed that she enjoyed it.l(she is always at loggerheads with H.H, being a teenager that's understood and also assuming the fact that she was molested by H.H, trauma and mental imbalances also could have been a case.)

Coming to the end I felt H.H was initially just being a man who loved Annabel and longed for her and eventually found her in Doloris. Not wanting to loose her(Annabel) again he hired a detective to look for her(Doloris/Annabel). He had fallen in love with a girl who he wanted to spend his life with. What else would explain his killing instincts and the offer he made a pregnant Lo, while crying?

Neither did he court a girl nor abused one after Lo left him, rather settled down with Rita.

Overall this book promised a great deal when it started but the fire eventually fizzled out by the time I reached the end and it again picked up before the book ends.

I loved the entire plot but the book seemed not something I would re-read. It is no doubt a classic and to explore such a topic in that time Vladimir Nabokov needed guts and that he possessed.