Ex-IAS officer’s historical fiction to release today

Retired IAS officer Madabhushi Madan Gopal’s second book ‘Rainbow Years: Conflict to Contentment’ will release today.

Unlike his first book, ‘Kangchenjunga Dairy’, which was an account of a trek in the Himalayas (published by Pilgrims Publishing), his latest is a historical fiction. The idea of the new book came to him in 2018 but he was able to put it together only during the pandemic.

The story starts in the ‘60s, which was a period of turmoil across the world. “There were revolutions and assassinations, the hippie movement (was raging), and the mood was rebellious. Everything was bubbling with new energy. I wanted people to know what happened then and how youth get attracted to certain ideologies,” Gopal elaborates.

The book is divided into three parts — Spring Thunder covers the ‘60s, Dark Clouds is set amid India’s Emergency, and Misty Horizon unfolds from 1984, seven years after the Emergency ended.

The characters were built on incidents cited by five of Gopal’s friends. “I would speak to them on a daily basis and jot down everything. I wrote sentences at first. Later I wrote about 10-15 pages every day. Some moments were painful and emotional for them to recollect,” he says.

He has alluded to Bengaluru in the book multiple times without naming it though. “I wanted to keep the context universal. Readers will be able to understand what I am referring to. The Marxist-Leninist Party’s network depended a lot on Bengaluru. Incidents from Mangaluru and Raichur also find a mention,” he says.

He says this book was tougher to write than his debut title. “To write historical fiction, one has to immerse in that period. You cannot write a lie as there will always be someone to counter it. Since I am not a historian, I decided to stick to the genre of fiction. It allows flexibility and space,” he says.

Lastly, what’s the story behind the title? “Rainbow is an optical illusion yet everyone loves it. It is enchanting and scintillating. Moments of youth are also like the colours of a rainbow,” Gopal explains. With the book, he wants to address “the youth who is caught in the illusion of a rainbow”. Commenting on the current times, he says, “Unrest is natural and can lead to creativity many a time. But my book says that if unrest is endless and disoriented, it will take one nowhere.”

Gopal is currently the chairman of the executive committee of Karnataka Ecotourism Development Board, and chairman of the NEP implementation task force in Karnataka.

The book is available on Amazon, Flipkart, and garudabooks.com. It is priced at Rs 399.