Until two years ago, Manu S Pillai was a familiar right hand to MP Shashi Tharoor. In media circles, reaching out to Tharoor meant going past this bright 20-something, who worked as the politico's chief of staff. But, in 2017, Pillai's writing set him on an another plane — one that immediately upped his credentials as a historian of note. His debut work, The Ivory Throne, which is based on the royal family of Travancore, won the alumnus of Fergusson College, Pune, the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar. Pillai's new historical title, Rebel Sultans: The Deccan From Khilji To Shivaji, narrates the story of the Deccan from the close of the thirteenth century to the dawn of the eighteenth. While the history of this region is primarily associated with the clash between Chhatrapati Shivaji and the Mughals, Pillai focuses on the period before the former, when the region was a fascinating place with Persian kings, African warlords and Hindu Sultans.

"Shivaji was a remarkable figure who dramatically altered the political fortunes of the Deccan. The region was being swallowed whole by the Mughal empire in the 17th century — the old Sultanates were past their heyday and devoid of unity. It was Shivaji who put forward a new vision of power, a new ideology of state, and set in motion a movement that would take the Marathas everywhere from Punjab to Bengal, and from Delhi to Thanjavur," says Pillai.