Interview with local newspaper

1. ENTERTAINMENT & LIFESTYLE
Bringing history to life
Orthopaedic surgeon and author Shankar Kashyap
First published Friday 5 December 2014 in Entertainment & Lifestyle
Last updated 18:16 Friday 5 December 2014
In a series of semi-fictionalbooks,orthopaedicsurgeonShankar
Kashyap bringsto light for the first time the life and culture of an
ancientIndian civilisation.He talks to Sarah Foster
‘THE Queen Puabi was majestic even in death. She was wearing a
purple velvet tunic covered in carnelian beads and gold threads. She
had a head dress made of gold leaves, ribbons and strands of lapis
lazuli and carnelian. The wealth of the city of Ur was on display at the
death ceremony.Her attendants, who were walking on either side of her,
were wearing similar, but slightly less ostentatious clothes. The Lugal of
Ur was sitting upright on his white stallion in the front of the cortege
along with a retinue of his bodyguards.I had never seensuch mourning
before.’

2. This passage,with its vivid descriptionof life in a Bronze Age Indian city,
is from Harappa 2: The Fall of Shuruppak, the second in a series of
books by Shankar Kashyap. The first in the Harappa series,The Lure of
Soma, was launched a year ago, and focuseson the importance of
Soma, an ancient ritual drink. The Fall of Shuruppak, just released,
takes the trading links between Harappa, an Indian city of around 5,000
years ago, and Mesopotamia,as its subjectmatter; while the third book
in the series,The Battle of Ten Kings, concerns conflicts and shifts in
power.
The world portrayed is one of mythology mixed with fact, resulting in
stories that are both epic and colourful. They are inspired by ancient
Hindu Vedic scripture, yet, while painstakingly researched,bear little
resemblance to academic writing on the subject. This is because
Shankar, who is originally from Bangalore but who now lives in
Newcastle, wanted to breathe life into the ancient texts.
“History books can be boring to read – after the first page, you’re falling
asleep,” says the 60-year-old. “There’s a chap called Christian Jacq who
has written about Egyptian civilisation and Rome in a storybookform,
and it makes it easier to read and very interesting, and at the same time
you learn history. What I have done is brought the stories to life in these
cities.”
While the histories of places like ancient Egypt and Greece are well-
documented,surprisingly little is known about Harappa, which is also
known as the Indus Valley. During extensive researchcarried out over
15 years, Shankar has learned of a highly civilised people which
occupied an area of more than 1.5m square kilometres,encompassing
India, Pakistan andAfghanistan. Most fascinating has been discovering
details of everyday life.
“They have excavated around 2,600 sites, but they have barely
scratched the surface,” says Shankar. “They have probably only dug
about five to ten per cent of the potential excavations. Nobody really
knows who lived in these ruins, but they’ve found lots of evidence of
people living in big cities in an extremely ordered civilisation. There are
no massive temples or pyramids, but the roads were fully paved, the
drains were undercoverand every house had a water supply, drainage
and a toilet. That, to me, is much more amazing than looking at a
pyramid.”

3. The Harappan civilisation had its own language, discoveredon
thousands of seals (stone impressions)unearthed in the region. It has
yet to be deciphered– but Shankar believes that it was the Harappans,
and not Aryan invaders from Russia, as is commonlythought, who wrote
the Vedic scriptures.“There is new evidence coming out that probably
the people living in these ruins composed the hymns,” he says. “Until
recently, they were consideredmythologicaland written in praise of God,
but if you look in detail, they’re in Sanskrit, which is an ancient language
similar to Latin. A lot of archaeologists are now coming round to my
view.”
Such is the level of respectforShankar’s knowledge that he was invited
to launch his latest book at Durham’s Oriental Museum, which houses a
collectionof Harappan artefacts, along with photographs taken by the
19th Century archaeologistJohn Marshall. One of the few places to
embrace the civilisation, the museum is keen to work with Shankar to
acquire further knowledge of it.
“Durham was one of the first Oriental schools in the country so they
needed the photographs,” he says. “They are going to be put online. The
museum has also beensending excavation teams to India.”
Already halfway through the third novel in the series,Shankar hopes to
launch it this time next year. He manages to fit writing and research
around working full-time as an orthopaedic surgeon at Gateshead’s
Queen Elizabeth Hospital – driven, he says, by his fascination with both
the Harappan era and history in general.
“I’ve always beeninterested in history, but I was pushed into medicine
by my parents,” he laughs. “I have a full-time job and don’t get much
time to sit and read, but I do like reading. I always thought we’ve got
history, but there’s nothing about Indian history – only dry books meant
for university professors.”
With a publisher based in India, Shankar first launched the series there,
before releasing it, less formally, in the UK. He says that, so far, the
response has been positive. “Critically, it has beenwell accepted,and
friends – I don’t know whether they’re telling the truth or not – love it,”
laughs Shankar.

4. If he has a target audience, it is those who have little or no idea of the
true nature of Harappa – including the vast majority of Indians. “If you
ask any Indian, probably one or two would be able to tell you at least half
of what I’ve said,” says Shankar. “I want to spread the word globally so
that people come to know about it.”
Always thinking of the next challenge, he has already set his sights on
another project – a purely factual book called A Brief History of Time in
India. When asked if he is trying to challenge Stephen Hawking’s
similarly-titled book, he laughs. “I suppose people might think that, but
this is nothing like it,” he says.
With retirement in his sights, Shankar hopes to have more time to
devote to his other job as a historian. “Hopefully, in five years’ time, I will
retire, and then take this full-time,” he says. “It’s a projectthat could go
on for a while. Once you start, it’s a bit difficultto stop. It’s an addiction.”
Harappa 2: The Fallof Shuruppak (Alchemy,£7.95)
W: shankarkashyap.wix.com/harappa-series