In Crimson Springdiplomat-turned-author Navtej Sarna masterfully weaves an intricate tapestry, bringing to life the brutal butchering of a whole bunch of hapless males, ladies, and youngsters at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar on that fateful Baisakhi of 1919, which continues to hang-out our collective consciousness regardless of the lapse of a century.

The historic fiction, which was launched on the UT Guest House, Sector 6, in Chandigarh on Saturday, is about towards the backdrop of India’s freedom battle, World War-I, and the Ghadar motion.

We see the occasions unfold by means of the eyes of 9 characters — Indians and Britons, peculiar folks and highly effective officers, the harmless and the responsible, some fictional, and a few actual (Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, Michael Francis O’ Dwyer and Udham Singh).

Sarna says the primary scribbling of the e-book was jotted round a decade in the past. “I had been interested in the Punjab of the 20th century for a long time. Around five-to-six years before the centenary of the massacre, I decided to write a large novel, not in size but scope, enveloping the emerging historical trends before and after the Jallianwala Bagh carnage,” he says.

Ask him in regards to the facelift given to the Bagh, which witnessed the execution of a whole bunch of unarmed folks, and Sarna calls the transfer “rather disappointing”.

“We have misplaced the sombreness of the memorial. What ought to be tragic and lift gooseflesh is now too fairly. One mustn’t wish to snack and take selfies at a memorial. It ought to hold alive the reminiscence of the tragedy,” he says, giving the example of the holocaust memorial set up in Auschwitz, where hundreds and thousands of Jews were killed in concentration camps.

On interesting historical nuggets found during his research, Sarna says, “We all refer to Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, the man behind the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, as General Dyer, when he was just a Colonel. At the time of the massacre, he was the temporary brigadier-general.”

An established writer of fiction and non-fiction, Sarna’s work contains the novels, The Exile and We Weren’t Lovers Like Thata brief story assortment Winter Eveningsnon-fiction works The Book of Nanak, Second Thoughts and Indians at Herod’s Gatein addition to two translations, Zafarnama (Guru Gobind Singh) and Savage Harvest (Mohinder Singh Sarna).