Books

‘It is more interesting to learn history through a thriller than to read a non-fiction theory about Jesus living in India. In The Rozabal Line, religion, history, factual narrative are interspersed with fictional narrative to give context and colour to the plot’

ASHWIN SANGHI

ON a lazy day in London, a cardboard box is found on a shelf of London’s SOAS library, where a copy of the Mahabharata should have been. When the mystified librarian opens it, she screams and falls unconscious. So begins Ashwin Sanghi’s The Rozabal Line, a thriller that inquires into the controversial claim that Jesus Christ travelled to India and was buried in Kashmir’s Rozabal Tomb. For Sanghi, “it is irrelevant whether Rozabal is the actual tomb of Jesus or not. Rozabal represents an ‘alternative story’; is symbolic of many facets of the Christian faith that may have been lost”. The Rozabal Line will be released by Westland Ltd & Tranquebar Press in November 2008.