Fiction: 18-year-old Shiv is reluctant when he is handpicked by Gandhi to study law in England

He hears the drums getting closer. Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-atat-tat. A procession of turbaned men in embroidered waistcoats and pantaloons marching down the road to their house. Rat-a-tat. A bugle sounds, splitting the air, and then a single flute, playing a local Sindhi melody, rises above all the other sounds, a thrilling, joyous arc of sound that reaches him as he stands there in all his finery, awaiting his bride and her entourage. He sits down on a sofa to listen. His mother gives him an anxious look. “Tired already, son?”

He doesn’t respond. His heart is racing. He looks away into the distance, at the shimmering Indus. She is coming to him via the mouth of the river, as all conquerors of Sind had come. Sher-kabab—the Lion’s Mouth, as it was named by the ancient Hindus who lived in the valley. Like all great rivers, it had been named and renamed by every conquering group that had crossed its shores. The ancient Aryans saw it as Sindhu. For the Greeks the river was Sinthus. The Chinese referred to it as Sintow. For the Persians, it was Abaseen. The Roman Pliny saw it as the mighty river that belonged to the land through...

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