Synopsis Lively, thought-provoking as well as scholarly, Rudrangshu Mukherjee's analysis of this emotive episode in Indian history presents a vivid picture of life in the barracks of the East India Company's cantonments in 1857, describes the social customs and military regulations that governed the daily routines of Mangal Pandey and other Indian sepoys, and examines the controversies and unrest that foreshadowed the 1857 rising. Uncovering the hard facts behind the myths and conjectures of popular belief, nationalist rhetoric and cinematic imagination, this book provides, for the first time, a credible portrait of Mangal Pandey as he really was.