About this ebook
As the Babri Masjid is razed in Ayodhya, brick by ancient brick, Ratan Oak stumbles upon a corpse at the Kipling House in Bombay. It is the beginning of an unraveling for him, of the submerged identity he has sought to suppress all his life: that of his great-grandfather, Ramratan Oak. Grappling with this tandem existence, Ratan realizes that the communal violence which consumes his city mirrors the turbulence it experienced in Ramratans times. For, concealed in the scientific discoveries of the plague epidemic of 1897 is the terrifying truth about the dead woman of Kipling House. A novel that perfectly balances character and pace, The Quarantine Papers dissects the compulsions of a hate that corrupts, as it trails a doomed love story from nineteenth century Bombay into our own day.
About the author
Ishrat Syed and Kalpana Swaminathan write together as Kalpish Ratna. Writing science is their passion, and they believe it has its true place in the arts. Their Compendium of Family Health offers a quick logic to understanding symptoms, crises, and confusing medicalese. Their novel The Quarantine Papers was shortlisted for the 2010 Vodafone-Crossword Award. Ishrat Syed is a Pediatric and General Surgeon. Ishrat Syed, the photographer, is concerned with the ravages on nature. His October 2011 exhibition The Persistence of Memory previewed his larger project Palimpsest:The Erasures That Made Bombay. Kalpana Swaminathan is a Pediatric Surgeon. She won the 2009 Vodafone-Crossword Fiction Award for Venus Crossing. Her newest novel is I Never Knew It Was You.