Sahyadrica

Foreword by C. R. Bijoy Dust evokes so many feelings. It settles on things – including memories – or everything turns to it. I may not be the only one to romanticise dust as it settles. This book that I reflect upon one last time in a long time, starts with me looking back as dust is settling upon it. It began with dusting off the leather-bound cover of a book written 150 years ago. Opening Forsyth’s posthumous publication – he died at the age of 31 due to an illness – was a doorway to a different world as much as it was a travel back in time. While I critique his and his contemporaries’ outlook not merely from a modern lens of ethics and wisdom but through the lens on the people of past and present, I was in awe of his extensive travel of central India, something I couldn’t match by a long shot. Personally, I wanted to match him, to present central India’s history from a modern lens. It took me much longer than him, and as I gather words in presenting a personal account of the writing...