New Delhi (17.12.2022): For a career civil servant living the role of an author is easy and tough alike. However, Partha Sarthi Sen Sharma (IAS: 1994: UP) managed to strike a balance between a bureaucrat and an author. He penned down uniquely rich history, tradition, culture and lives of Andaman. He tried to weave in his imagination that is in the form of travelogue cum novel -- Andamanush Nicobarese: An Island Travenove.

Breaking the clichéd outlook about Andaman and Nicobar Islands being an exotic land of pristine white beaches and blue skies, he paints an entirely different picture. The protagonist of his book travels through these islands for his research project and meets with diverse people, the myriad unique stories of these islands start taking shape — the forgotten stories of the  indigenous tribes, of the colonial British as well as other European powers, of the Indian freedom fighters incarcerated here, the stories of Japanese ‘occupation’ during the Second World War, the stories of the so-called ‘Local Borns’, the waves upon waves of migration, the stories of the Nicobarese Bishop and the Gujarati business family, of the local ‘Rani’ and finally the nightmarishly tragic story of the Tsunami of 2004 are in the offering. The book can be termed as a travelogue and novel rolled into one.