Vaibhav Purandare grew up in Mumbai in the 1980s and 90s, the tumultuous decades in which Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Sena went from being regional political players to champions of a militant Hindutva that carried their rhetoric and rage across India.
He began his journalistic career with the political newsmagazine Blitz in 1993, in the early part of which, Thackeray and his organization played a key role in the Mumbai riots, and has since worked with India’s leading newspapers such as The Indian Express, The Asian Age, Daily News and Analysis (DNA), Mid-Day and Mumbai Mirror, apart from writing for a host of other publications.
His first book, The Sena Story was published in 1999, when he was only 23. His second book, Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography (Roli Books) and is now into its fifth edition. He is currently Senior Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times, Mumbai
Vaibhav Purandare in his book – A story of Revolution against British in India has described the quest for Independence, by many revolutionary Indian freedom fighters. If you read history books the mainly mentioned struggles of freedom were of 1857 or the struggle that was started by Mahatma Gandhi in around 1920. There is very less information regarding what happened between those periods.
The fact is that the struggle of freedom was kept alive, by young revolutionary Vir Sawarkar. He carried out the struggle from England which was the heart of the British Empire. Many young people joined hands under the leadership of Sawarkar and some impotent British officers like Lord Wiley were assassinated. Vaibhav Purandare has narrated the names of these young people who went to England on the pretext of studying but were actually interested in the fight for freedom. They faced the atrocities of the British government, for instance Vir Sawarkar was sent to Andaman for Kala Pani for 10 years.
Nandini Sengupta a writer, parvati sharma writer, mogiya Basu writer, Vaibhav Purandare well known for his book on Sachin Tendulkar, moderator Naveen Chaudhary. This is the team discussing hisorical fiction. This webinar is based on how different writers write historical fiction not to narrate history but to present your own frame of mind through written words. Usually writers who write historical fiction are the ones who are already interested in history. Sometimes some particular thing inspires them. For instance Nandita Sengupta was inspired to write historical fiction after she visited the Ajanta and Ellora caves near Mumbai.
She researched the story of these caves and then studied history as a hobby. This is usually the case with most historical fiction writers. Most Indian historical fiction writers get their characters from Indian history for instance the story of Salim and Anarkali which everyone knows about. Even characters like Laxmi bai Queen of Jhansi, Bajirao and Mastani etc. are the movies inspired by real life historical characters.