Book Spotlight - Rani of Rampur by Suneeta Misra

Rani of Rampur
Description
Rani, which incidentally refers to a queen in Hindi, is the intrepid protagonist of this novel. She works at a  mall time local newspaper in the city of Bareilly in northern India, when she learns that her mother Shakuntala has received a letter from her estranged sister, inviting Rani to help plan a family wedding at their ancestral home in the village of Rampur. Intrigued by this invitation and seeing it as an opportunity to stake a claim to the family estate from which her mother was disinherited, Rani takes up her aunt’s offer. She also hopes to find enough sensational information for a newspaper article on the upcoming local elections in the village, of which her powerful uncle is a big part.

Once she arrives, she finds that the situation at her ancestral home is not as uncomplicated as she initially hoped. Instead of familial bonhomie, there is political intrigue, murder, and even supernatural forces at work in the deceptively peaceful, rural landscape. How Rani deals with the conspiracies hatched by her Machiavellian uncle and spoilt cousins, to defend those she comes to love, forms the crux of this fast paced thriller. Additionally, the story looks at how caste and class mix explosively in Indian politics to create a volatile environment of violence and exploitation.

Buy Links: Amazon

Youtube: 1. Gandhi Degree College http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEPIhih7fYI

2. A Dream of Education in Modern India http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdy1kC2htpc

About the Author

Suneeta Misra is a lifelong teacher in Maryland public schools. Of late, she has branched out into storytelling which includes making short films, documentaries, and writing fiction. She has made a documentary on the education of dalit girls in rural India, and another one on Gandhi Degree College, an institution bringing about change in the education of the girl child. Rani of Rampur is her first published work of fiction that draws from her observations of the challenges faced by girls in Indian villages.

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