It is not a blind love or hatred for the kings but a very neutral analysis, giving neat insights into how rulers should and shouldn’t be. We are taken to their courts, palaces, their minds, battlefields, attitude towards others, bed chambers (!), gardens, their habits (sometimes eccentricities) and many other facets over all the Muslim rulers who ruled India from Timur to Bahadur Shah Zafar II. Madhan takes us through the lives of Muslim kings and queens who once ruled India. I feel it is a must have in everyone’s home. Vandhaargal Vendraargal is a wonderful book, unputdownable. It is presented in such a way that we feel it is happening right in front of us. It is a spell binding narration of real things that happened in the past. Creation of law, philosophy, its implementation, multiple wars and the numerous scars that they left behind, how Egyptians created mummies and how the civilization in India alone has survived these many years (!) are all neatly discussed. How they dressed, what kind of houses they built, what they ate, how they lived, what they did for leisure, what they worshipped, how they wrote, how they counted, how they traded, how they advanced themselves, how they ruined each other and loads of other details. We stay for a while in Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, India and Rome – the earliest of civilizations and see what the people did. We witness man inventing the wheel and learning to create fire. Starting from the Big Bang, he takes us through Darwin’s Origin of Species, walks along with Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons and introduces civilizations. Ki Mu Ki Pi was one glorious ride one can aptly title it World History Roller Coaster. And how right she was! I was simply unable to put the book down after I started it. When DD said on NVOK that she had spotted Ki Mu Ki Pi at a book store and was unable to put it down after reading the first couple of pages, I decided to try it out. I read 2 of his books recently – ‘Ki Mu Ki Pi’ and ‘Vandhargal Vendraagal‘. It is just his interesting way of telling me things without doing away with facts that got me interested in history. Even a month ago, he was talking to me how Poland as a country suffered under Hitler. He walked me through history – he spoke to me about Rama, Krishna, Bhima, Arjuna, Napoleon, Alexander, and the World Wars, about Hitler, Gandhi, Patel and loads of others. Those years and those conversations formed the basis of my intellectual thirst for years to come. He would answer all my questions, regardless of how stupid they were. When I was a kid, my grandfather used to take me on his cycle or for a walk and talk to me about a lot of things. His narration is such that you would want to read more and delve deeper into many of the topics. He can quickly and easily tell you the truth and you would want to hear it again and again. I have come across very few people who can tell bare facts in a pleasant way.