I, Harshavardhana

By Pavithra Srinivasan

Pavithra Srinivasan is a writer, journalist, artist, translator and editor – not necessarily in that order. She is fascinated with History, and writes children's fiction for adults. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and she is currently a historical-fiction columnist for Young World, The Hindu’s supplement for children. Her column is named Yester Tales. She’s also an organic farmer and lives in her farm, a tiny village in the Thiruvannamalai District where taps are still seen as luxury items. She writes about her farming adventures in The New Indian Express, under the column How I Met My Farm. She was movie and music critic for rediff.com, and is entertainment journalist with film magazines such as Southscope, Ritz and Inbox1305. She also wrote extensively for Chennai’s lifestyle magazine, Eves Touch, and worked as Fiction Editor with Katha India, a publishing house devoted to translations, where she edited full-length translations of authors such Jeyakanthan, Sundara Ramasamy, Damodar Mauzo, Imayam and others (one of which made it to the long-list of Crossword Awards).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pustaka Digital Media
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 6580110701353

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I, Harshavardhana

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Pavithra Srinivasan

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Table of Content

Author’s Note

1. In the Beginning …

2. Destiny’s Plans

3. Of Marriages and Madness

4. Storm on the High Seas

5. The Drums of War

6. Holding the Fort

7. Ships and Anchor

8. The King and I

9. Traitors!

11. Road to an Empire

12. An Emperor Remembers

Glossary

Author’s Note

Reading Ponniyin Selvan at the age of 12 altered my perception of fiction and History for good. At 13, I decided grandly that I would have a career in writing, and that I would begin with stories for children. And then, as is usual in a humdrum adult life, my dream slipped away. I began to pursue accounting as a possible profession.

But my heart wasn’t in it.

At 22, I was prepared to follow the route set forth by my family – a career in accountancy (and later, marriage), but I knew that I didn’t really want to go down that path. Meantime, I continued to read and blog, hoping against hope that my interests would lead me to a life I could love, barely aware that I was already on its first rung.

One week in February 2002, I received a call by a sub-editor of The New Indian Express, who was doing an article on Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan and stumbled across my name (along with a few others), as a hardcore fan. She asked me for my input; I duly sent her a mail with a long account of the love of my life; the book that deserved to rank amongst world classics.

Back came a reply. What are you doing, not writing for us? I told her about my love of fiction, especially books for children, and was instantly asked if I would be interested in contributing for their children’s supplement, Vibes. My first ever published story, titled The Trip, was published on March 14, 2002.

From then on, I began to contribute heavily to The New Indian Express and not just stories for children, but features for adults. I moved on to Young World, The Hindu. To Chandamama, Prodigy, and to Gokulam. 

Published by the Kalki Group of Magazine, Gokulam was special to me, as the magazine was founded by the descendants of my favourite author (and the reason for my writing), Kalki R Krishnamurthy. Writing in Gokulam was a prestigious thing; an accomplishment. I’d already written a serial for them and when the call came asking for another, I opted for a historical.

I like to think of my specialty as throwing light on little-known facets of well-known historical figures: to explore hidden aspects of their life and personality, and showcase knowledge that is obscured by time and disinterest. (This, in fact, forms the basis of another series I wrote: Little-Known Tales of Well-known Times. Yes, it’s a plug.) The process of choosing a theme for a story is almost like spirit-writing, where you hold pen over paper and let the spirit take control of the pen: you read upon a wide variety of people and cultures and period, until you start feeling a constant, insistent tug from the person or period you’re supposed to write about. You browse through a great many books; magazines; websites and gradually, by degrees, you realize that one person keeps engaging your attention, forcing you to delve more into their lives. Read about me, they seem to say. Write about me. This is my story, and you are going to tell it.

I’d read about Harsha Vardhana in school, of course. Who hasn’t? He was one of the greats of India; a pioneer among emperors; wise, intelligent, noble, religious, brave, uniting Northern India that seemed, once more, on the cusp of disintegrating into tiny provinces and descending into senseless violence. He’s mentioned more than once by Emperor Mahendra Pallavar in Kalki’s magnum opus, Sivakamiyin Sabadham as a peerless king who’s the rarest of them all: a warrior who nevertheless detested war, promoting peace, prosperity and the arts.

As I grew to adulthood, my mind was consumed by various humdrum, earthly concerns and I lost touch with this king as I had with many others. I probably wouldn’t have had occasion to remember him if not for one circumstance: once, on a random visit to the Chennai Connemara Library, I stumbled upon a book on Harsha Vardhana. I browsed through it idly, thinking that it was probably one that glorified emperors in a superficial way – for it’s true that in-depth character analyses of many of our historic personages do

Reviews for I, Harshavardhana

[lykamaly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

short and sweet. Nice. Gives a new perspective on personalities of old times.