Book Review: Murder at the Mushaira
Ghalib goes detecting When presented with 'What if?', the 'scenario' conjures up numerous possibilities making it an interesting proposition to delve in. What if Mirza Ghalib was a detective? Isn't this enough to hook a reader? We bet so. Thus it is with great interest that we began reading Murder at the Mushaira , and we were not disappointed. Raza Mir, the author, toyed with the possibility of envisioning Ghalib as a detective for nearly 15 years. What we get in Murder at the Mushaira is not a racy whodunit, but more than a peek into the life and times of Ghalib, the Mughal court, the nobility and the sepoys who tried to overthrow the East India Company. The novel is set against the backdrop of First War of Independence and it begins at a point when the 'night is too silent' and ends with a gunshot with the horse rider thrown away from his mount. Who is the horse rider and what is his mission? At that time, Shahjahanabad is a city brewing with tension, in