On Wikipedia, the name Balaji Yashwant Gulgule is conspicuous by its absence. A chief revenue collector for the Scindias in Kota, in the 1730s, Gulgule finds mention in TCA Raghavan's just-released non-fiction title, History Men (HarperCollins India). His family, over time "accumulated a range of functions as bankers and agents" for the Maratha chiefs. These correspondences grew into a huge mass of documents that provided an almost, accurate picture of the times of the ruling dynasty. Getting access to this collection becomes pivotal to Raghavan's work, which tells the story of the 20th century historian triad, Jadunath Sarkar, GS Sardesai and Raghubir Sinh and how their friendship nurtured their research.

The Gulgule documents were just one example of the prodigious joint efforts of Sarkar, Sardesai and Sinh to make history accessible and available to all. Following several exchanges with the owner of the Gulgule family collection, Sardar Pushottam Rao Gulgule, the trio was finally able to get hold of it. "But it embroiled them in a court case, which disallowed them from publishing these documents. The inability to publish meant that their quest was a failure. But, a copy was kept by Sinh in his library in Sitamau and it remains the one usually consulted today. The original is harder to track. The Sitamau copy had the added advantage of being edited and referenced by Sardesai," says Raghavan, former High Commissioner of India to Singapore and Pakistan.

TCA Raghavan