The Rozabal Line - Softcover

Shawn Haigins; Ashwin Sanghi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1430327545 ISBN 13: 9781430327547

Publisher: Lulu Enterprises, Inc., 2007

Synopsis

On a lazy day in London, a cardboard box is found on a shelf of the SOAS library where a copy of Mahabharata should have been. When the mystified librarian opens it, she screams before she falls unconscious to the floor.
An elite group calling itself the Lashkar-e-Talatashar, the army of thirteen, has scattered around the globe. The fate of its members curiously resembles that of Christ and his Apostles in the first century AD. Their leader is not even a blip on the radar of intelligence agencies, yet their agenda is Armageddon.
Somewhere in the labyrinthine recesses of the Vatican, a beautiful assassin swears she will eliminate all who do not believe in her twisted credo. She loves to kill-again and again.
A Hindu Astrologer spots an approaching conjunction of the stars and nods to himself in grim agreement. It will happen on the very date he had seen as the end of the world. And it's not far off.
In Tibet, a group of Buddhist monks search for a reincarnation, much in the way their ancestors searched Judea for the son of God.
In strife-torn Kashmir, a tomb called Rozabal holds the key to a riddle that arises in Jerusalem and gets answered at Vaishno Devi.
An American priest, Father Vincent Sinclair, has disturbing visions of himself and of people familiar to him, except that they seem located in other worlds, other ages. Induced into past -life regression, he goes to India to piece together the violent images burnt onto his mind.
Shadowing his every move is the Crux Decussata Permuta, a clandestine society which would rather wipe out creation than allow an ancient secret to be disclosed.
In The Rozabal Line, a thriller swirling between continents and centuries, Ashwin Sanghi traces a pattern that curls backward to the violent birth of religion itself.

About this title

About the Author

The name "Shawn Haigins" is a pseudonym. In fact, it's an anagram of the author's real name, "Ashwin Sanghi". Ashwin writes extensively on history, religion, and politics. "The Rozabal Line", his first novel was completed in 2007 and self-published in the US in 2007 under his pen name. The novel went through several revisions over 2007 and 2008 and a revised edition under Ashwin's own name was released by Tata-Westland Ltd. & Tranquebar Press for the Indian subcontinent in 2008. This revised edition went on to remain on India-Today's Top-10 for three consecutive months. Ashwin's second novel, a mythological political thriller, is due to be released in India in November 2010. Ashwin is an entrepreneur and holds a master's degree from Yale while working towards a doctorate in Creative Writing. He lives in India with his wife and son.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The onset of winter in idyllic Kashmir meant that the days were gradually getting shorter. Even though it was only three o'clock in the afternoon, it felt like nightfall. Icy winter winds, having wafted through the numerous apple and cherry orchards of the area, sent a spicy and refreshing aromatic chill to the man's nostrils. The leather jacket and lamb's wool pullover underneath it were his only comfort as he knelt to pray at the tomb.

Father Vincent Morgan rubbed his hands together to keep warm as he took in the sight of the four glass walls, within which lay the wooden sarcophagus. The occupant of the tomb, however, resided below in an inaccessible crypt. Standing in front of a Muslim cemetery, the tomb was located within an ordinary and unassuming structure with whitewashed walls and simple wooden fixtures.

Vincent's blonde hair, blue eyes, together with his athletic build and pale skin clearly marked him out as separate and distinct from the locals. The goatee and rimless spectacles completed the slightly academic look.

The sign outside informed visitors that the Rozabal tomb in the Kanyar district of old Srinagar contained the body of a person named Yuz Asaf. Local land records acknowledged the existence of the tomb from 112 A.D. onwards.

The word Rozabal, derived from the Kashmiri term Rauza-Bal, meant "Tomb of the Prophet". According to Muslim custom, the gravestone had been placed along the north-south axis, however, a small opening revealed the true burial chamber beneath. Here one could see the sarcophagus of Yuz Asaf, which lay along the east-west axis as per Jewish custom.

Nothing was out of the ordinary here - nothing that is except for a carved imprint of a pair of feet near the sarcophagus. The feet were normal human feet - normal, barring the fact that they bore marks on them; marks that coincided with puncture wounds from a crucifixion.

Crucifixion had never been practised in Asia, so it was quite obvious that the resident of the tomb had undergone this ordeal in some other, distant land.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lulu Enterprises, Inc.
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1430327545
• ISBN 13: 9781430327547
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 332