The Empire
Dual timelines. History with a heartbeat. One thread woven through every chapter.
"Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom."
— Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, inspiration for the novel
1944. The Chin Hills of British Burma. An Indian soldier named Mohan breaks the British line and charges toward the INA battalion he has bled for — only to fall with bullets in his back, his uniform staining red in the mud.
2019. The Lok Sabha erupts as India prepares to abrogate Article 370. Across the border, Pakistan's Prime Minister is making a decision that will reshape the subcontinent. At a Kargil forward post, a young captain holds the line against odds that shouldn't be survivable.
Two eras separated by seventy-five years. One family line threaded through both. The Empire moves between colonial sacrifice and modern sovereignty, asking what we truly owe the nations that shaped us — and what we are willing to give.
In the spirit of Saragarhi: the Sikh Regiment honours the twenty-one soldiers who held the outpost of Saragarhi against thousands rather than surrender, in 1897. Their story of sacrifice against impossible odds is the spirit this novel carries into its own pages. The Empire now arrives on 16 September, following a brief delay due to persistent technical difficulties.
Coming in Hindi: The Empire is set to be translated into Hindi by Shri Tarun Morari Bapu. On 11 January 2026, Arnav presented the book at the Hindu Sammelan in Anand Nagar, Navlakha — a milestone in the novel's journey to a wider Indian readership.
A book rarely reaches a reader's hands through one person's effort alone, and The Empire is no exception. To the whole team at Writer's Pocket — thank you.
Thank you for your patience through every delay along the way, and for the calm, steady guidance you offered at each stage of this book's journey — from manuscript to something a reader could actually hold. Thank you for the work that happens behind the scenes and rarely gets acknowledged: the editing, the formatting, the printing, the countless small decisions that go into turning a file into a physical book.
Publishing is never really a solo act, however much it can feel like one from the writer's side of the desk. This novel exists in its current form because of the people who believed in it enough to help carry it the rest of the way — and I'm genuinely grateful for that.
