I wrote this novel because I have always felt that a part of our history lives in silence — in the stories never told, the courage never recorded, and the dreams our forefathers carried quietly in their hearts. So much of India’s struggle for freedom was shaped by ordinary men and women who dared extraordinary things, often at great personal risk. Their desperation for dignity, their hunger for respect, and their yearning for a free India form the emotional pulse of this book.

Whether the Kohinoor heist at the centre of this story truly occurred is something history may never confirm — but that “maybe” is powerful. It carries the echo of countless Indians who tried the impossible simply because they believed their motherland deserved better. Through the journey of the Kohinoor diamond, this novel attempts to reclaim a fragment of India’s stolen pride, to give voice to a legend that might have been, and to honour the heritage that shaped us.

Though The Royal Kohinoor Heist is written as a thriller, for me, it is also an act of remembrance. It is a tribute to the lakhs of freedom fighters — the unsung, the forgotten, the young who never grew old — who gave everything so that we could inherit a nation with its head held high. Their sacrifices beat beneath every chapter of this story.

In writing this book, I hope to carry their memory forward — and to remind readers that courage, even when unrecorded, changes the destiny of nations.