Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

Her husband, the king, agreed to hand her to an enemy ruler to save himself, and history barely remembers what she did next.

Dhruvadevi appears on Gupta seals and inscriptions as Mahadevi, the chief queen, yet her story survives mainly in the fragments of a lost Sanskrit play, and I spent years asking what a woman with that much at stake would actually have done.

Check out the novel to meet the queen who refused to be a bargaining chip, the strategist who saw an empire burning before anyone else did, and the woman who walked into the enemy camp knowing she might not walk out.

Dhruvadevi: The Queen Who Made Chandragupta is the first book in the Gupta Trilogy, published by Penguin India and available now on Amazon worldwide, so tap the link in bio to order your copy and tell me in the comments what would you have done in her place.

#Dhruvadevi #HistoricalFiction #GuptaEmpire #IndianAuthors #BookstagramIndia

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2 days ago | [YT] | 0

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

In the Gupta court of 377 CE, the sharpest mind in the room belonged to a queen, and Storizen Magazine noticed 🔥
📰 Storizen Magazine, October 2026 issue.

Here is what the review says:

“Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra’s Dhruvadevi: The Queen Who Made Chandragupta is a debut historical thriller set in the Gupta Empire around 377 CE. It reimagines Dhruvadevi not simply as a royal wife, but as a sharp political actor whose choices help shape the rise of Chandragupta II.

The book is best for readers who enjoy historical fiction, palace politics, and stories centred on women whose influence has been overlooked. Sarvajeet writes in a clear, dramatic style that moves easily between romance, danger, and political manoeuvring. His language is accessible rather than heavily academic, which helps readers enter an ancient world without feeling lost. At the same time, the novel carries the flavour of an epic: royal courts, alliances, espionage, rebellion, and civil war are described with a sense of scale and urgency.

History is treated as a starting point rather than a fixed script. The author uses known figures and the Gupta-Saka conflict, but admits that Dhruvadevi’s inner life and many events are imagined. This gives the novel freedom to explore female agency, marriage as a political tool, and the violence behind empire-building. The risk is that readers wanting strict historical accuracy may feel the line between record and invention is sometimes blurred.

The strongest part of the book is Dhruvadevi herself. Sarvajeet gives her intelligence, anger, and agency, making her more than a symbol of a forgotten past. Yet the novel occasionally leans towards familiar thriller beats—betrayal, assassination, and dramatic reversals—which can make the politics feel more modern than ancient.
Even so, it is an engaging, readable introduction to a queen history largely left behind.”

#Dhruvadevi #BookReview #BookstagramIndia #DebutNovel #BooksOfInstagram

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4 days ago | [YT] | 0

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

What I Learned About Ganesha While Researching Dhruvadevi


Last weekend I was involved in the Kumbhabhishekam, the installation of Ganesha, in the ancient village of Vishwanathpuri, near the city of Karur in Tamil Nadu. The ‘Lord of New Beginnings’, I hoped, would bring a fresh start for a sleepy village, notorious for police raids for illicit country liquor. For most of the villagers, Vinayaka was the preferred name of the deity, and my mind drifted to the horrific things that name connoted in very early times.

The ceremony was a hectic, noisy two-day affair. On the first day, the women of the VNC family fetched sacred Cauvery water in pots, and the next day the men of the VNC family carried the same pots to anoint the deity. While researching my novel Dhruvadevi, about the forgotten Gupta queen, I had come across how Vinayaka metamorphosed into Ganesha. The composite Ganesha we know today took shape during or perhaps just after the Gupta period.

For most people Ganesha, Vinayaka and Ganapati are the same deity, but the three names carry different associations in my head.

Vinayaka began as a group of troublemaker spirits, four of them in the Manava Grihyasutra. They would cause madness, create obstacles to success and rituals, and possess people. To ensure a trouble-free conclusion of tasks and to preserve sanity, they had to be appeased with offerings of meat, wine, fish etc. kept at crossroads. A village which knew its country liquor wouldn’t have trouble arranging for these offerings.

The chanting reached a feverish pitch and a few key members of the family climbed a staircase to the sky to anoint the shikara, the top of the temple. My mind turned to how the Vinayakas had merged into a composite deity and, in time, into Ganesha. The Yajnavalkya Smriti, from the early centuries CE, records that the troublemakers were integrated into a composite whole, the Vinayaka, the chief troublemaker, the Vighna-karta. It prescribes a ritual of Vinayaka-shanti to keep him in good humour. In the later Puranic tradition Vinayaka’s role expands further. He becomes the Ganapati or the leader of the ganas: boisterous, grotesque, alien-like attendants of Shiva.

As the reed-shaped nadaswaram swelled and the thavil, a barrel-shaped drum, pounded towards a crescendo, I thought of a Puranic masterstroke, in which this fierce and unruly Vinayaka changed from a troublemaker to a trouble-remover (Vighna-harta), taking on a refurbished identity and role as Ganesha. The earliest images of Ganesha date from the 5th century, at sites such as Udayagiri and Bhumara. The Puranas tell the story of his birth in several versions, with Parvati, Shiva or both creating him. The best-known version is from the Shiva Purana wherein Parvati creates a boy from the dirt of her body, Shiva beheads him and then replaces the head with an elephant’s. With this backstory, the troublemaker Vinayaka who lived on the fringes became a mainstream deity, the benevolent Ganesha, the Lord of New Beginnings. It was a remarkable repositioning exercise with the Puranas being used again, not surprisingly, as a powerful instrument of change.

All these thoughts passed through my head as I offered a pot filled with holy Cauvery water to the priest who anointed a secondary deity. Eventually the procession was in the sanctum sanctorum, where the rest of the VNC family members offered their pots of water to anoint the chief deity, the Vinayaka or Ganesha.

I looked at the newly installed deity’s face and felt a surge of reassurance and hope. There was a palpable optimism in the air, a hope for a fresh start, amongst the devotees whose hearts were beating with a newfound joy. It seemed as if a weight had been lifted off their shoulders, and the days, like rain clouds in the dark Karur sky, carried promises of a bountiful future.

My mind recalled the obstacle-ridden, almost malevolent Vinayaka, the leader of pot-bellied, deformed and ugly beings. Indeed, only Vinayaka, who was powerful enough to create obstacles, had the ability to remove them as Ganesha. It is no coincidence that the elephant deity rides a mouse: the restless, nibbling, ever desiring manifestation of human ego.

The deity had not slain the mouse, or locked it away. He had not banished our desires, nor covered up our ugliness. He had just steered and weaponised this erratic desire, this desire that has led to a lot of civilisational advancement and degradation at the same time.


#Ganesha #Vinayaka #GuptaPeriod #HinduMythology #TempleTraditions

4 days ago | [YT] | 2

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

Palace intrigue, greed and valour, set against female courage and pride, with twists and turns that keep the pages moving at relentless speed, which is how some of the first readers have described Dhruvadevi, and I am genuinely grateful for every word.

A propulsive, cinematic narrative is how novelist Aishwarya Jha put it, and the carousel above gives you a glimpse of the four characters who drive the story, from the embattled Ramagupta to the formidable Saka leader.

If this sounds like your kind of read, the book is available now from Penguin India and can be ordered on Amazon worldwide, Flipkart & select book stores through the link in my bio.

What was the last historical novel that you simply could not put down, and what made it so gripping?

#Dhruvadevi #HistoricalFiction #MustRead #BookRecommendations #DesiBookstagram

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

He taught me one thing that really stayed with me for a long time: plot first, prose follows. A chapter ends on a knife, or perhaps it does not end. History provides the canvas, the backdrop, the set. The reader MUST, MUST need the next line.

He died a day before his last novel Adam & Eve was being released. Farewell, teacher. Till we meet again.

#JeffreyArcher #RIPJeffreyArcher #KaneAndAbel #HistoricalFiction #Dhruvadevi

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

History remembers the emperors, but it often forgets the queens who made them. 👑✨

Step into the golden age of the Gupta Empire with a story of a woman whose defiance changed the course of India. Dhruvadevi married the crown to save Magadha, only to realize she had to save her beloved empire from that very crown.

Caught in a deadly political triangle, her life was defined by impossible stakes:

🗡️ Ramagupta: The husband and king

🦅 Rudrasena: The ruthless Saka warlord who desired her

🦁 Chandragupta: The future emperor she was destined to crown.


Dhruvadevi is an epic historical thriller where forbidden love, betrayal, war, and ambition violently collide. It is a ‘propulsive, cinematic narrative’ , a deep dive into the forgotten story of a queen who found the true measure of her will when the world tried to strip away her honour.

Swipe through to uncover the legend 👉


📖 Out now in stores from Penguin India. Scan the QR code on the final slide or hit the link in our bio to order your copy on Amazon today!

#BookRecommendations #BookstagramIndia #HistoricalFiction #NewRelease #EpicReads

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4 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

56-Inch Chests, Jugaad Shipping, and a Signed Hardcover, Inside the Chaos of My Book Launch

When a child leaves a parent's home, the parent feels heartbroken and happy at the same time.

That was how I felt when I accidentally stumbled upon my novel in Crossword last week. Dhruvadevi had begun her own journey now to find her readers, her own place in the world of books.

The most moving thing in the weeks leading to launch was the deluge of unexpected support that came my way on WhatsApp.

I have never really warmed up to WA groups, but I took a leap of faith and exposed my DPS Class XII-I group to the book cover options. The group quickly metamorphosed into a fierce focus group. The inputs were diverse, detailed and animated. One cover option won hands down, but a classmate who speaks entirely in riddles suggested marrying the mood/atmosphere of a rejected option with the design of the winner. A deadly martial arts expert attacked my preference for a specific Devanagari font, pointing out that it wasn't readable. A very polite one roasted me by asking whether the book cover was for me or the readers.

Then the tech-genius delivered a knockout punch. He felt that as a rookie writer, I should have my name shunted down to the very bottom (thankfully not removed from the cover altogether). The title & “The Queen Who Made Chandragupta”, he felt, should be front and centre.

Another discussion about my name opened a Pandora's box. Friends debated my long, difficult-to-pronounce name. The tech-wizard suggested that I shorten it to something small & easy to remember. I have a nickname “Servo”(that apparently “adds life”), so in the heat of the moment, I did toy with the idea of a pseudonym like Manto.

Meanwhile, a classmate who had read the manuscript suggested adding a family tree, which was incorporated at the very last minute.

Then the pre-order link went live and the groups went berserk. One wisecrack claimed to have developed a 56-inch chest. A US Masters league cricket player's heart went ‘garden-garden’. A high-profile CEO wanted a personalised signed hardcover copy for himself & his wife (also a classmate). It was an honour, even though the book had, at the time, been released only in humble paperback.

With the pre-orders available at Amazon in India, friends abroad began pre-ordering physical copies to addresses in India. Then, inevitably, Jugaad got to work. An operations wizard classmate found a way to ship his personal copy abroad, to the UK using a strange website.

The process also uncovered pieces from my writing past that I had forgotten. One friend had held onto my handwritten novella about “school prefect elections” for years, until it got misplaced during one of his many relocations.

The preorder response was so vociferous that the book occasionally ranked second in the Ancient World best-seller list, sitting next to the legendary Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles.

It occurred to me that just as history had forgotten my protagonist Dhruvadevi, I too had forgotten these wellsprings of support in my own backyard, filling my barren land with hope for a new spring.

1 month ago | [YT] | 4

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

Dhruvadevi’s ‘Pinch Me’ Selfie Moment

Woke up to Dhruvadevi sitting at #2 on Amazon's Ancient World bestsellers, right under The Song of Achilles. I know Amazon rankings are temporary, but what the heck, will enjoy this while it lasts.

Both novel focus on a betrayed/wronged person reclaiming agency inside a stuffy ancient political order. History remembers Achilles, it remembers Chandragupta. It forgot Patroclus. And it forgot Dhruvadevi.

Madeliine Miller’s novel was one of my key benchmarks while writing my novel. Like Ms Miller, I tried to write a well-researched historical fiction novel rather than pulpy myth-retelling. There is lot of period detail of ancient 4th century India for readers to enjoy- the food, the rituals, the festivals, the lifestyle, the war styles.

While Dhruvadevi is considered a political thriller, war drama etc., it is also a love story.

Thank you to every early reader who showed faith in Dhruvadevi.

Amazon Book Link in my bio/comments.


Note: This ranking is as of 10 AM, 25 September 2026. It may vanish in a flash!


#Dhruvadevi #DebutNovel #BookLaunch #MadelineMiller #BookRecommendations

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

Two queens. Two husbands who failed them. Two very different endings. History remembers Draupadi. It's time it remembered Dhruvadevi too.

Dhruvadevi: The Queen Who Made Chandragupta is OUT NOW. A Penguin India novel.

Link in Bio. Or Scan QR code on carousel

#Dhruvadevi #HistoricalFiction #GuptaEmpire #BookLaunch #NewRelease

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1 month ago | [YT] | 2

Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

Traded like property by her husband, the betrayed Queen Dhruvadevi turns disgrace into defiance. With her former lover, she masterminds a bloody uprising that topples the king and reshapes an empire.

Pre-Order Link in Bio

An epic historical thriller, Dhruvadevi’s story is both a celebration of female agency and a critical reflection on the forces that shape nations. More than just a tale of empires, the novel attempts to reimagine history through the eyes of those often left out of it: women, Sakas, Licchavis, Nagas, Buddhist Sangha etc.

The novel speaks as much to our contemporary conversations on gender, autonomy, and nationhood as it does to the ancient world it brings to life. First in a trilogy of novels, set in the Gupta era, the book is crafted for readers who crave intellectual depth, emotional intensity and thriller action.


Amazon Pre-Order Link for India attached www.amazon.in/Dhruvadevi-Queen-Who-Made-Chandragup…


#GuptaEmpire #Dhruvadevi #Chandragupta #WomenInHistory #PenguinIndia

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