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"We have for, some reason, a very strong inland bias. "We have for, some reason, a very strong inland bias.Particularly after Independence, our history book writing andthinking has become very much about how the rest of thecountry looks sitting from Delhi, as if the rest of thecountry exists for the purposes of being provinces to Delhi,"Sanyal says. It is rather interesting to see how the flipping theperspective to a maritime one, alters the geopolitics of theregion by changing the international neighbours – from Chinaand Pakistan to Indonesia, Oman and South Africa. "If we take the coastal perspective, our neighbour isIndonesia and we have had greater interaction throughthousands of years with Indonesia that we have had with China. "Our civilisational links with the former have been sostrong that after the Indonesians became free, they namedtheir country after ours, their currency ‘Rupiah’ after ourcurrency, even their national airlines is called Garuda," hesays. It is also the predominantly colonial point of view withwhich Indian history is written, that the author contests inthe book. He writes, "One would get the impression from thesenarratives that the history of the Indian Ocean came intobeing only after the Portuguese arrived on the scene and thatit effectively stopped with the withdrawal of the colonialpowers." He says how an occasional chapter in history books wouldtalk about what happened before Vasco da Gama turned up. "In that they will quickly talk about the spice trade asif the Indians’ aim in life was growing spices for westernconsumption. "Sure, we did that too but that was one of the many otherthings that were going on and we were making our own voyagesof discovery across this part of the world," Sanyal says. The book takes the readers on a journey to explore remotearchaeological sites, ancient inscriptions, maritime tradingnetworks and half-forgotten oral histories, while drawing uponexisting and new evidences to challenge claims about famoushistorical characters and the flow of history itself. PTI TRSANSTRS