The Incredible History of the Indian Ocean

This is my second attempt at adapting one of my books for a younger reader. My first attempt—The Incredible History of India's Geography - was an adaptation of Land of the Seven Rivers. I must admit I had not expected it to gain much of a following, but it seems to have developed a life independent of the original. At the time of writing, the book had already run through twenty-six editions. So I readily agreed when. Sohini Mitra at Puffin suggested that I attempt an adaptation of The Ocean of Churn. After all, many of my younger readers live in the coastal cities and states that I describe in the book.

The problem was that, by this time, I was swamped with official work. So it fell upon Ashwitha Jayakumar to do the slog overs. It may not have been easy to deal with a distracted author and I thank both of them for their patience.

Nikhil Gulati put in a lot of effort with the illustrations. He obviously read the book very carefully and did a lot of research on his own. I would also like to thank Shalini Agrawal (copy editor) and Akangksha Sarmah (designer) who gave the book its final shape. As they say, publishing a book is a team sport.