The Lotus Queen, the first novel by Dubai-based and London- educated Rikin Khamar, is set in 14th century Chittor, the capital of the Rajput kingdom of Mewar (most of modern-day Rajasthan). It falls in the genre of historical fiction, as Khamar spins a tragic tale of valour and sacrifice around the time when Mewar is threatened by the Sultan of Delhi, Ala’uddin Khilji, who covets the Rajput queen, Padmini, for her divine beauty. The novel starts with a dramatic account of a traveller returning to Chittor after a war in which the Sultan’s army decimates the Rajputs. Khamar sets the stage for the story with a detailed account of the western road to Chittor where ‘hundreds of dead warriors had been suspended from “hanging trees”—wooden logs erected to display the dead and mark the result of a brutal conflict’ (p. 4). Locating the beginning of his tale in the aftermath of the conflict, Khamar then goes back one and a half years in time to narrate the events—starting with Padmini’s marriage to Rawal (King) Rattan Singh of Mewar—that eventually lead up to the penultimate clash between the Rajputs and the Sultanate.
Throughout the novel, Khamar expertly plays around with time, constantly going back and forth in every chapter, thus heightening the drama in the rendering of a known legend.
November 2011, volume 35, No 11