Title: Kaalaa Paani
Description: This book deals with that section of Urdu literature called *Habasiyaat* [= writings composed during imprisonment]. It also contains a travelogue. This historical account describes the life of those persons who unsuccessfully rose in revolt against the British colonialists in South Asia in the abortive war of 1857. It was written in 1941 and gives an account of the hasty and prejudiced legal proceedings that condemned these ‘rebels’ to transportation in the Andaman Islands far away from the Indian coast for 18 years. Hence, the book is entitled *Kaalaa Paani* referring to a distant place ‘across the black water’. The cruelty dealt to these prisoners and the remarkable courage shown by them in the face of all these injustices has been brought out graphically by Muhammad Ja’far Thaanesari, the author.