When I was writing Sepia Leaves I was concious that Rourkela was an artificial place built entirely out of the dream of one man – Jawaharlal Nehru – and with no sense of history because a lot of people, the tribal communities living there, were wiped out to create the town.

Reading Sanjitha’s review clarified the thought to me a little more. How do you describe a display window located in the midde of a marquee? She said Rourkela is ‘little India’, the kind you see when you travel abroad. In Sepia Leaves you are travelling within India, across the dreary plains of Orissa, into a place outside, into madness, into Rourkela, the display window of India.

See review here: Businessworld.in

Yes, Sepia Leaves does not do what most books on India do. Exoticise India. That is because it is located in exotic India, gone mad

Tags: businessworld, exotic, madness, review, Sanjitha Rao Chaini