Thank you for the opportunity to defend myself.

So far as I know, it is only Mr Shatrujit Singh who has vented his displeasure at the book, not the rest of the family.

When I met Mr Singh in his home in May 2002, I told him I was looking for documentation on his great-grandfather for a book that would portray the India of the last days of the Raj through the eyes of his Spanish wife.

I also said I wanted to include the history of the Kapurthala lineage (which I have done) and that I wanted to give Western readers an idea of what Sikhism meant. He very kindly offered me a book on Jassa Singh Ahluwalia.

I have not seen Mr Singh since in spite of my attempts to contact him. I sent him the epilogue of the book almost two years ago and when I tried to get his impression, he banged the phone down. Now that the book is a success and a film is being planned, he starts shouting.

The book is a fictionalised account based on the research I have done. But a work of fiction does not mean it is fake or “a pack of lies”.

If the Spanish cover includes the line “the true story of the Spanish princess…” it is to differentiate this book from a previous one on Anita Delgado published in Spain in 1998 and who (sic) told only part of the story and omitted important aspects (including her love affair with one of the stepsons which appeared in several tabloids at the time).

But the jacket of the Spanish book and the Indian one include the same note by myself, which basically says that if I chose to write a novel, it is to have the freedom that fiction gives to better recreate the flavour of a time and to be able to better imagine what went through the heads and hearts of the characters. Besides, I have changed some names in the Indian edition not to hurt anybody’s feelings.

I never wanted to write a cartoon. My aim was to describe these characters as I imagined they were, with their grandeur as well as their weaknesses and contradictions.

I sacrificed the historic(al) truth for the truth of fiction. Both are legitimate, mostly when there is absolutely no attempt at defamation on my part.