Razak Khan. 2022. Minority Pasts: Locality, Emotions, and Belonging in Princely Rampur. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Mir Yar Ali ‘Jan Sahib’. 2021. The Incomparable Festival. Ed. Razak Khan. Transl. Shad Naved. Gurugram: Penguin Random House India

For a reader, susceptible to the allure of a well-turned book which is furnished with a beautiful cover and a title holding a promise of a voyage into lesser-known domains, the two books in focus, Razak Khan's Minority Pasts: Locality, Emotions, and Belonging in Princely Rampur, and its companion volume, The Incomparable Festival, are indeed a rare treat.While the first offers an overview of the "histo-