Either way, William Dalrymple would have ended up discovering new chapters of history. The Scottish historian had originally planned to be an archaeologist. "As a 14-year-old, I went digging at sites during the summers. My worldview was very Scottish. If you told my teenage self that I would be writing about the 18th and 19th centuries, I would have been horrified, and regarded it not as history but tame stuff!" he says early into our chat at a Colaba five-star with a panoramic view of the Arabian Sea.

Serendipitous or otherwise, in his newest book, The Anarchy (Bloomsbury), the first batch of wily traders from the East India Company (EIC) arrived on India's shores and went on to change the course of Indian history forever. Edited excerpts from the interview.