Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Penguin Books India, New Delhi, for the excerpts from:
The Weaver’s Songs by Kabir, translated by Vinay Dharwadker; and Collected Poems by Dom Moraes.
Penguin Books Ltd, London and SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic Inc. for the excerpt from the poem XXXIII, from A Little Larger than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa. Edited and translated by Richard Zenith. © Richard Zenith.
W. W. Norton, New York for excerpts from The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy, translated by Aliki Barnstone.
The Navajivan Trust for excerpts from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.
This is a novel about the misuse and misinterpretation of religion so I have taken extra care not to offend any religious community or faith. In order to avoid unnecessary controversy I should also state explicitly that with the exception of actual historical events that find a place in the narrative such as the demolition of the Babri Masjid and incidents from the lives of Ashoka, Akbar and Gandhi, this is a work of fiction and that names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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