Lost in Time

Chintamani Dev Gupta is a boy on holiday at a bird camp near Lake Sattal when a wormhole pulls him out of his own era and drops him into the world of the Mahabharata. With no way home, he is stranded among the figures of the great Indian epic.

There he meets Hidimba, the rakshasi, and her son Ghatotkacha, born of Bhima. Ghatotkacha is a gentle giant who rules the hills, valleys, woods and streams, and he sees himself as protector of the forest spirit and everyone who lives within it. He is immensely strong, a master of illusion, and at home with rakshasa technology that astonishes the boy from the future. He also knows the old secrets of the forest and the elemental forces behind it.

Guided by this unusual friend, Chintamani is soon caught up in the events of the epic itself. The novel pairs a tender friendship between a modern child and a rakshasa with the lingering questions the distant past still raises.