Ratings: 1 Star

‘Rebel Sultans’ reads like a cricket commentary, voluble but without any depth.

A rat-tat-tat of facts thrown your way, a jumbled assortment of characters moving in and out of picture without leaving any mark – Pillai manages to turn an interesting epoch of history into mindless drivel.

The principle problem is of course: he bites more than he can chew – 7 centuries condensed into a short book. Not focusing on any realm or a region, he skirts and flits around Shahs and Rajas and Mughals and Marathas in a very clumsy dance of words, giving his book an appearance of textbook, replete with data but utterly shallow.

He should have sat on this book a little while longer, not heeding the call of his publisher to meet the deadline. Because this feels like a rush-job, intended to repair than to recreate history as per his viewpoint.

A shame!

Somebody needs to shed a proper light on this era, as this book is ill-suited to serve the purpose.