Page 104 - Magazine 2022-intractive flip

Manu S Pillai is a Kerala-born historian and author of critically acclaimed, award
winning works. St. Teresa’s College had the honour of hosting the release of his
latest book ‘False Allies’ in Kochi.

1) How do you conduct your research so effectively 2) Out of all of your works, which is your favourite
considering that your field of expertise is Indian and why? Which one took the most effort or gave
history? the most satisfying output?
My principal focus is modern history--I do, The first book is always special for most
ST.TERESA’S COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), ERNAKULAM
in essays and in my second book, venture writers I know. In my case, I spent over half
into the early modern period, but primarily a decade of my life working on The Ivory
my work covers the eighteenth to twentieth Throne. And even now, whenever I get an
centuries. In terms of research, one has to opportunity I continue to collect more
be diligent as well as collect material from material and information on its protagonists,
diverse sources: this could be archival the period, and Travancore generally. I
records, official reports, material evidence suspect at some point I will return to the
in buildings and art, newspaper evidence, subject, though I don’t know when or how.
literary works from the period, and so on. In
3) Which other fields/genres are you interested in?
India, because we have so many languages, it
I find biographies a very interesting
is not always easy to access all the research
challenge--the idea that one must not only tell
material directly, so good translations by
the story of a historical figure, but in a sense
respected scholars are also an important
104 source of information. try and penetrate another human being’s