‘History never repeats itself exactly, but it certainly rhymes’: Amish

Interview/ Amish, author

Even after writing multiple best-sellers on gods and history, Amish Tripathi’s latest made him feel like he was writing his debut book all over again. Dhruv-Tara & The Great Indian History Quiz, which hit the stands on July 27, is his first children’s book. “I am 51. I hadn’t read a children’s book in 45 years,” he says. With this one—the first of a seven-book middle-grade adventure series—his idea is to make history interesting. In an exclusive interview, the author talks about writing for kids, decolonising history, the recent Gen Z protests and more. Excerpts:

After writing several best-sellers, you are now out with your first children’s book. Was it more challenging?

Oh, it really was. First, I am 51. I hadn’t read a children’s book in 45 years. So I went back and read several kids’ books to get into that mindset. And it is not just the story, the structure has to be crisper and shorter. You might think that is easier, but it is actually more difficult. In that sense, it felt like writing a debut again.

Also, I am trying to communicate historical facts—things about Indian history that many children don’t know. That is the purpose of the book. But it has to be conveyed through an interesting story. That makes it even more challenging. But it was also great fun.

Did you always want to write a children’s book? Or, was it also about expanding your creative space?

Normally, the artistic decisions I make are not driven by business. They begin with something that inspires me. My job then is to figure out how to make it marketable. But the art itself has to remain pure.

The idea for this book came from conversations with my son. He reads extensively. But when I asked him what he was learning about Indian history in school, I was surprised by how much of our actual history he didn’t know. Some aspects of our history have been decolonised, which is a good thing. But not all. For example, when I was in school, we weren’t taught that what is commonly known as the Pythagoras theorem had been described by Baudhāyana nearly 200 years earlier. So I thought, why wait for the education system to change? Why not write my own book? 

Your book also tries to make history interesting for children.

History is an incredibly important subject. But many history textbooks written by established historians are quite boring. They are often just lists of dates and events. They aren’t written as stories that children can enjoy. 

Our ancestors understood that even subjects that appear dry can be taught in engaging ways. Take mathematics. I love mathematics, although most people seem to dislike it. A thousand years ago, there was an Indian mathematician, Bhaskaracharya. His daughter hated mathematics. So he wrote a book that explained mathematical concepts through Sanskrit poetry and stories. It was named Lilavati, after his daughter, and for centuries it was used in Indian gurukuls to teach mathematics. What a wonderful way to teach!

History is becoming increasingly polarised today. It has boiled down to ‘our history’ versus ‘their history’. How do you view this divide?

I think there has always been ‘our history’ and ‘their history’. The Russians have their interpretation of World War II. Americans have theirs. Similarly, Britain sees Winston Churchill as a hero. Many Indians remember him very differently because of the Bengal famine, in which millions died while he remained indifferent. The problem begins when history is written without facts, or when facts are simply invented.

Language is crucial. We saw it becoming a defining feature during the students’ protest at Jantar Mantar recently, so much so that it even made its way into Parliament. Since your book is for kids, how conscious were you about language?

I was conscious about it to some extent. My son is a Gen Z, so I picked up some of the vocabulary from him, words like delulu, FR, low-key. But I haven’t used them excessively. It doesn’t come naturally to me, and it shouldn’t sound forced. 

In the story, you will find younger characters occasionally using Gen Z expressions, and adults asking them, “Sorry, what does that mean?” That reflects the generational divide.

This protest also challenged the stereotype that Gen Z is an unserious generation. It showed that they are deeply invested in issues that affect their present and future. In that context, why should they also care about the past?

This idea that Gen Z is rebellious and passionate is often presented as though it is something entirely new. It isn’t. Every generation has been like that.

Fifteen years ago, people were saying the same things about millennials. Before that, about my generation. And if you go back to my parents’ generation, especially in the 1970s, they were arguably far more rebellious than any generation since. In comparison, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z have all been much more peaceful and constitutional in the way they have expressed dissent. 

Every young generation questions authority. That is part of being young. Naturally, they will protest about issues that matter to them. In the 1970s, my parents’ generation protested because they were dealing with inflation, economic hardship and the failures of India’s socialist experiment. Those were genuine issues. 

The nature of these protests was also very different. The distinction between online and offline almost disappeared. Memes became protests, and protests became memes.

Exactly. The function remains the same; only the form changes. Every generation expresses itself differently because the tools available to it are different. 

Earlier generations organised rallies and marches. Today’s generation also has social media. That doesn’t change the underlying impulse. The important point is that Gen Z absolutely has the right to protest, provided it is done within constitutional limits.

But when your education, career and future are at stake, where does reading history fit into that?

It becomes all the more important. We are living at a time when the global order established after World War II is beginning to break down. A new geopolitical order is emerging. The last time the world order was reshaped, India wasn’t at the table. As the saying goes, ‘If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.’

For Gen Z, it is especially important that India plays this geopolitical game well because the decisions taken over the next five or 10 years will shape the next several decades. Those consequences will affect Gen Z far more than they will affect someone like me. 

Young people should absolutely raise issues that directly affect them. For example, how will artificial intelligence reshape employment? India currently doesn’t have the same influence over the AI revolution as countries like the United States or China have. And their responsibility is to their own citizens. So how does India protect its own interests?

The best way to understand how to navigate today’s geopolitical landscape is to study how similar moments unfolded in history. History never repeats itself exactly, but it certainly rhymes.

This is the first book in a seven-part series. What can readers expect from the books that follow?

The series will continue to follow Dhruv and Tara, so readers will stay with the same characters as they grow. Through their adventures, they will continue learning about Indian history in an engaging way.

One of the upcoming books, for example, explores how foreigners viewed India. Today, many people assume that foreigners always saw India as backward or barbaric, but that is largely a product of the last 150 years and British colonial propaganda. If you read the accounts of Greek, Roman, Arab and many other travellers who came to India centuries earlier, you will find that many admired this civilisation. I think that’s going to make for a fascinating book. But the books are not only about history. They also include life lessons.

You spoke about AI. We are living in an age of information overload. There are books, films and shows, social media, podcasts and AI. This is your 13th book. As a writer, how do you ensure quality and make your work stand out in such an environment?

A few decades ago, the problem was the opposite. There simply wasn’t enough scholarly material available. Today, we have gone to the other extreme. There is a flood of information. 

In such a situation, readers and viewers are paying artists for their judgment and taste. There are scholars whose job is to generate knowledge. Then there are public intellectuals and storytellers whose role is to absorb that scholarship and present it in a way that is engaging and accessible. That is what I try to do. 

Steve Jobs once said something along these lines: People don’t buy an Apple product simply because of the hardware; they trust Steve Jobs’s judgment about what should go into that product. In a sense, they are buying his taste. I think storytelling works similarly.

Dhruv-Tara & The Great Indian History Quiz

Author: Amish

Publisher: Red Panda

pages 200; price Rs350