I found Indian culture by way of studying Sanskrit. I was homeless, I spent too much time in libraries, and I needed a hobby. So I put my nose into the "Teach Yourself" series and after learning enough to be dangerous, I dug into volumes of the Vedas, Panchatantra, and Panini. After some brief contact with ISKCON I reaffirmed my Catholic faith, but my fascination and respect for Hinduism and Indian history hasn't waned. I simply built on that by studying the St. Thomas Christians, the history of Goa and the Malabar Coast, and all the factions of "Malankara Church".

I have found a basic Sanskrit vocabulary to be useful, in terms of knowing what people's names or titles mean, or understanding what Buddhists are talking about. And it was even striking to me when identifying similarities with other Indo-European languages. And for me, India has a unique mix of exotic foreign-ness and British-Empire familiarity that I am inexorably attracted to it.

This is an important book. Being colonised and oppressed by the British can lead to the literal rewriting of history and the forgetting of a nation's past. So, kudos... I mean, namaste, to historians who put together research like this!