Dehradun, Aug. 28 -- Bygone Doon

It would be unthinkable for an author of popular novels to have the hero die on the first page of the book. It would violate the grammar of a good plot to an entertaining story. But epic battles are not scripted by pens of writers but by blood drops on hallowed grounds.

Nalapani would have been different in its emotions and haunting appeal had the two protagonists been other than Major General Rollo Gillespie and Balbhadra Kunwar, or even if the battle had been fought between two other nations.

Gillespie, 48, and Balbhadra, 25, were men in their prime, one at peak of his career, the other capable of achieving anything that he put his mind and might to. The two newly emergent imperialistic and expansioni...