So that her years of reading don't prove futile, she writes a short story set in the time of Aurangzeb (which is the story of the Rajput Prince). This gets her disinvited from the next discussion. However, the discussion becomes heated and Razia, who is extremely well-versed in medieval Indian history after her years of reading from her father's library constantly interrupts the discussion with her well-researched points and wins every debate about the nature of society and social harmony before the arrival of the British. In the present time, the government calls for a round-table by leading intellectuals on national integration. While he is still a staunch atheist and rationalist, the memories of his mother make him start questioning his ideology and whether it was worth going against his family in the spirit of rebellion. However, when his mother passes away, he returns to his village and agrees to perform the rites towards atonement for the sin of eating cow-meat. This draws his father's ire and when he refuses to back-down, he is asked to never come back to his village. He too is disowned by his family after an opinion piece he writes in a newspaper, opining that the consumption of cow-meat should be encouraged as a way of coming out of superstition. The third character, Professor Shastri, a progressive thinker and intellectual from the same village as Lakshmi. We later learn that this story arc is actually a short fictional story written by Lakshmi herself. All these feelings collide within him as he watches the fall of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.
By now, he is in the inner circles of Hamdullah, but deep inside, his disdain for his new faith and pining for his old ways of life in Rajputana increase. This journey takes him to Kashi during the demolition of the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Here, he forges a relationship with a government official and record-keeper, Hamdullah, who teaches him the ways of Islam and the ways of the elite, including the Persian and Arabic languages. The rest of the story arc follows his journey from being a sexual slave to nobles and war commanders, his forced castration, his sale to higher and higher households as a slave until he becomes a eunuch slave in the palace of the Emperor in Delhi. However, instead of fighting to the last and sacrificing his life, in a moment of weakness when he is surrounded by the enemy, he quickly agrees to surrender and convert to Islam. The prince we follow is given the task of defending the small Vishnu mandir in the fort. When they understand that they will be defeated, they decide that all the women will commit Jauhar while the men will fight to the last breath and kill themselves with their own swords before they can be captured. The second character, whose story is told in parallel with the story of Lakshmi is a Rajput Prince from Devagad, whose ancestral kingdom is under siege from the Mughals. Eventually, she stays back in the village and dedicates all her time to history research.
Piqued, she also starts reading the books and slowly begins to uncover the truth about the history of medieval India.
Bsl bhyrappa gujarati books full#
When Lakshmi's father passes away, she visits her native village and finds her late father's reading room full of books about Indian history and her father's copious notes along with them. Her father, a staunch Gandhian, disowns her, but she stands against such narrow-minded behaviour. The conversion, she says, is only namesake, but both her and her like-minded, progressive husband Aamir decide to live an irreligious life. Shastri, a well-known intellectual of India.
She converts her faith to Islam after encouragement from Prof. Lakshmi, an educated, highly progressive woman from a village near Kunigal, Karnataka, marries Aamir, her college sweet-heart and a fellow film-maker. The book follows the story arc of 3 characters, Razia Begum (maiden name Lakshmi), Professor Shastri and a Rajput Prince from the days of Aurangzeb's rule in India.
In this case, it refers to the figurative veil that has been used to hide and obfuscate Indian history from common people. AavaraNa literally means to cover or to surround.