I picked up ‘Ivory Throne’ by Manu.S.Pillai just because I loved the way the author presented his ideas over interviews. I thought it would be a story woven in the grand setting of history painting a glossy image about a palace or a queen. What I got was a rabbit hole that changed how I see Kerala entirely.
Manu doesn't write like a typical historian. He writes like someone who's obsessed. And that obsession is contagious. Yes, the book is about the Travancore Royal Family. But it's also about power, love, politics, tradition, all tangled up in a way that takes you there, makes you think and check out the glossary more than a few times. What baffled me was that these events actually happened centuries ago and possibly we already had it in our history books too, which left no impression whatsoever. Reading about queens and kings felt like reading about real people with real problems, not distant figures in textbooks. Manu has this gift for making you care about a character's decisions in the moment, before you know how history turned out.
I finished the book in 2 weeks I guess - much longer than a typical read. In fact, it never was a casual read, but felt more like a research in itself. Then I started listening to him speak - more and more. Podcasts, talks, interviews. The man has this way of connecting dots that seem unconnected. He'll talk about a decision made by a 16th-century ruler and suddenly you understand something about Kerala's relationship with colonialism, caste, and modernity. And the most appealing thing is the way he talk - with a little bit of Hinglish and Manglish in between.
From there, I fell deeper. I went looking for more about women in history. I found myself reading about Rani Lakshmi Bai, then diving into the lives of ranis and ammachis across different periods. And what struck me was how these women were / were not written about. The historians and writers who told their stories weren't just documenting facts. They were resurrecting real people with agency, contradictions, ambitions and at times consciously sweeping them and their achievements under the rug.
That's when I realized something about great historians. They're not just recording the past. They're arguing for how we should see it. Every choice they make about which detail to include, which woman's perspective to highlight, which contradiction to sit with, it shapes everything.
And when a historian writes beautifully, when they actually have a way with words, history stops being dead information. It becomes alive. You care about these women not because you're supposed to. You care because the writer made you understand what they were fighting for, what they lost, what they refused to give up.
The more I read, the more I realized I didn't know my own state's story.
What fascinated me most was the contradiction. Kerala had progressive social movements early. High literacy. Low gender gaps. But it also had rigid caste systems, deep conservatism in certain ways, people working hard to maintain traditions even as they fought for change. It wasn't clean. It wasn't a simple story of progress or decline.
That's what Manu does so well. He refuses to simplify. He shows Kerala as a place where brilliant people made difficult choices under impossible circumstances. Where women had power in some contexts and none in others. Where modernity arrived on its own terms, shaped by history, geography, colonialism, choice.
I think what got me was realizing how much of what I thought I knew about Kerala came from outside. Movies, textbooks, stereotypes. When I actually started reading the history from people who understood it deeply, it was like the ground shifted.
Now I notice things differently. When I see the buildings and think about the decisions that shaped them. I hear about current politics and understand the long history underneath it. I read the news and think, "This connects to something that happened in the 1800s."
Manu opened a door for me that I didn't know existed. He showed me that history isn't boring. It's the most interesting thing there is. It explains everything about where we are right now. And if you find the right historian, someone who's genuinely curious and refuses to make it simple, you can fall in love with understanding your own place in a way you never expected.
Book Link : Ivory Throne- Chronicles of the House of Travancore
