General Harun-ur-Rashid, deposed, has to win the next election. His philosopher-advisor, Zafar, devises the strategy of making a movie about the last Nawab of Bengal, and how he was overthrown by the British. He hopes the audience will draw a connection between the two leaders' shared fate. Meanwhile, the beautiful Keshwar is selected to play the role of the Nawab's spy.
“So I suppose I am really cut out for Aleya’s role.” A cynical smile played at the corner of her mouth.
“Aleya was kidnapped by the Portuguese, and raped. Her class refused to accept her. She became an outcast, déclassée, a notch-girl - and a spy. Her profession and her fatal beauty gained her intimacy with foreigners and natives alike, and to their secrets. Her redemption was the Nawab, to whom she reported every morning.”
Neither of us spoke for a while. The summer light began to fail, and through the twilight floated the muezzin’s call.
“What does her name mean?”
“Will-o’-the-wisp, ignis fatuus. She’s the foolish fire the audience must follow as she follows the last Nawab to his ruin. I want to show the Nawab as suffering from a character defect, a fatal flaw - trust. He trusted the English....
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Not only do the seas roll on but two romances,a death at sea, uncovered past lives, history uncovered in Brazil, caves in Australia, poetry in Senegal, the Lux Mundi
