The 400-year-old town of Jhansi still feels that it owes its fame to a young rani who ruled for four-and-a-half years. In the uprising of 1857 which came to be known as the 'First War of Indian Independence', she was a singular figure in a gallery of heroes. Rani Lakshmi Bai also became the protagonist in a different kind of story - fiction by British writers to dramatize the horrific experience of the mutiny in which an Oriental queen, full of passion, added a thrilling dimension. But despite an incredible career, it took eighty years for Indians to write a comprehensive description of Rani Lakshmi Bai's life. It was not because she was forgotten but that people who lived in her time did not leave any writing behind - and the few who knew her were too afraid of reprisals to profess links with her. How did a young Marathi woman come to wield so much influence in a strongly Rajput-dominated region in the grip of an alien power? The life of the warrior queen has inspired historians, writers and, more recently, film-makers. But for the first time, in biographer Tapti Roy's vivid rendition, Lakshmi Bai is located within the wider context of her time and space.

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