Mrs A’s Indian Gentlemen
It’s 1943, and war rages across Europe. In Britain, the Great Western Railway Works’ labour force is comprised of a few men too valuable, old or infirm for active service and thousands of recently recruited women. With critical skills in short supply, the British government looks to the Empire to provide vital expertise in the run -up to the D Day invasion.
And that is how railway engineer Imtiaz ‘Billy’ Khan, logistics supremo Vincent Rosario and maths prodigy Akaash Ray find themselves in Swindon, lodging with the well-intentioned Mrs A, hilariously navigating bland food, faulty toilet cisterns, secret assignments and a mutual distrust of one another.
This is a rollicking tale of misadventure about what happens when cultures collide, dedicated with
affection to the town of Swindon. More …
The Peacock in the Chicken Run
It’s 11 December 1981 and a cross section of British Asians heading ‘home’ to India unexpectedly find themselves abandoned overnight in a deserted Heathrow Airport on the coldest night of the 20th Century at Heathrow airport. Long cherished resentments, dark passions, secret griefs and hidden prejudices explode as the temperature drops and tempers flare. More …
The Final Charge
A charismatic African politician seeks justice for the war crime perpetrated against his father in 1950s colonial Kenya. With its widespread use of torture, internment and executions it would be easy to characterise the Mau Mau Emergency as Britain’s own little War on Terror, but the truth, as explored in THE FINAL CHARGE, is far more complex. Set against the backdrop of the deep divisions and institutionalised corruption in present day Kenya, THE FINAL CHARGE explores important questions about what it means to be a minority in a society, where responsibility lies for past wrongs and who gets to decide who is condemned as a terrorist and whom lauded as a freedom fighter: themes more relevant today than ever. More …
Taz
A lonely man awaiting execution somewhere in Africa spends his last night writing to a woman in India he has never met. Hard drinking Mumbai based newswoman Taz Dhar sets off to find out who he was, and how he could have been executed without apparently anyone knowing about it. Her journey takes her from India to her home in the UK and then via Germany, Ethiopia, Ghana and The Gambia into ever greater danger as the reality of what she confronts begins to dawn. Who was the man who wrote to her? What happened to him? And who is she? Born in Uganda, brought up in the UK, finding fame then failure in India, her identity as an Expatriate Indian, an East African Asian and a British Moslem all come into question as the reality of the War on Terror, and India’s ambitions within it, embrace her. More …
The Lords of Alijah
The powerful Lords of Alijah have ruled the princely state of Gwalior for more than a century. Their military prowess and smart statesmanship is renowned throughout the Indian Subcontinent, and their only allegiance is to their overlord, the Scindia, Maharajah of this wealthy, powerful land the size of France. But one among them is a traitor: the devious Jaswant Rao Pawar, has spies in every part of the kingdom, and is determined to seize power for himself. More …