Nalapani: A Hill Once Red
It would be unthinkable for an author of popular novels to have the hero die on the first page of the book. It would violate the grammar of a good plot to an entertaining story. But epic battles are not scripted by pens of writers but by blood drops on hallowed grounds. Nalapani would have been different in its emotions and haunting appeal had the two protagonists been other than Major General Rollo Gillespie and Balbhadra Kunwar, or even if the battle had been fought between two other nations. Major General Rollo Gillespie. Balbhadra Kunwar Gillespie, 48, and Balbhadra, 25, were men in their prime, one at peak of his career, the other capable of achieving anything that he put his mind and might to. The two newly emergent imperialistic and expansionist powers in the sub-continent were at the end of the 18th century on a collision path. The British, rather the East India Company, avaricious to the core and relentless in its pursuit of pelf, saw the region as its private burrow. The risi...