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Based on the diaries and letters of Nargis, Sunil and their daughter Priya, as well as on conversations and interviews with family and friends, Darlingji – as they often addressed each other – is a probing yet affectionate biography of two extraordinary people and their love for each other.

The story begins in the late 19th century, in a small village in northern India, where a thirteen-year-old Brahmin widow meets a Muslim sarangi player and elopes with him. Many years later, their daughter Jaddanbai moves to Bombay and becomes a star of the early talkies. Her home on Marine Drive, is famous for its evening mehfils. It is also the home of Fatima, Jaddanbai’s daughter, who will set the screen ablaze as Nargis.

Far removed from this world of glamour, a young boy named Balraj Dutt spends his teenage years attempting to rehabilitate himself and his family after the trauma of Partition. In 1950, at the age of 20, he arrives in Bombay. And there his life takes an unexpected turn: he is given the lead role in a new film, and is soon on his way to becoming Sunil Dutt, the film star.

Then comes the moment that transforms both their lives: on 1 March 1957, during the making of Mother India, Nargis is trapped in a circle of flames and Sunil risks his life to save her. They recuperate together, and fall in love. Nargis has been in a long but futile relationship with the mercurial Raj Kapoor, and in Sunil she finally finds an anchor. Their relationship is stormy and secretive to start with, but it survives every crisis to culminate in a quite wedding on 11 March 1958.

This book is centred on the legend of Padmini, the medieval Rajput queen widely believed to have been pursued by Alauddin Khalji, Sultan of Delhi. Sreenivasan investigates the many narratives that exist about this heroic queen’s legend in India, ranging from Sufi mystical romances in the sixteenth century to nationalist histories in the late nineteenth century. The book explores the manner in which early modern regional elites, caste groups, and mystical and monastic communities shaped their distinctive versions of past times through the repeated refashioning of this legend. It then traces the appropriations of these narrations by colonial administrators and nationalist intellectuals for varying political ends.

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