Riot

Acknowledgments

I owe a special debt of gratitude to my dear friend Harsh Mander, IAS, on whose hitherto unpublished account of a riot in Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, I have based some of the details of the Zalilgarh episode. As this book goes to press, I have learned that the story of the Khargone riot is being published in 2001 by Penguin India as part of a debut collection by Harsh Mander, Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten People, which I warmly commend. With Harsh’s permission I have used many of his basic facts about the management of the riot and, in a few places, his own words, and I remain deeply grateful. Readers should know, however, that no foreigner was killed in Khar-gone; all the key details as they relate to the characters in this novel — and in particular all the personal relationships, character elements, beliefs, and motivations depicted herein — are, of course, completely fictional.

The research by “Professor Mohammed Sarwar” on Ghazi Miyan is based on the actual work of Professor Shahid Amin of Delhi University, another old friend to whom I am grateful, though every other detail relating to the character, including the views expressed by him, are solely my responsibility. The efforts of “Rudyard Hart” on behalf of Coca-Cola in India were in fact undertaken by Kisan Mehta, for whose kindness, recollections, and insight I offer my thanks.

My friend and publisher in India, David Davidar, and my literary agent in New York, Mary Evans, offered valuable suggestions on the text, which have helped me improve it immeasurably. Jeannette and Dick Seaver at Arcade Publishing, and the diligent Ann Marlowe, have been terrific in their support for Riot and its author. My sisters, Shobha Srinivasan and Smita Menon, read the manuscript with devotion and insight; they have each left their mark on the characters and events of this novel in more ways than one. To them all I offer my thanks, and my love.

For help in various ways as this book was brought to completion, I am also grateful to Rosemary Colaco, Sujata Mehta, and Vikas Sharma. My thanks, too, to Sreenath Sreenivasan for creating a Web site for me and to Ambassador A. K. Damodaran, for a verse about John Knox.

This novel was completed during a difficult time in my life, when it would have been impossible without the maturity, large-heartedness and strength revealed by my sons, Ishaan and Kanishk. To them, for being themselves, I shall always be eternally grateful.