William Dalrymple's critically acclaimed book, White Mughals, is being adapted into a play by Tamasha, one of UK's foremost theatre companies.

The book tells the story of a romantic love affair and marriage between James Achilles Kirkpatrick, a rising star in the East India Company, and Khair-un-Nisa, a Hyderabadi princess. Pursuing Kirkpatrick's passionate affair through the archives across the continents, Dalrymple unveils a fascinating story of intrigue and love that breaches the conventional boundaries of empire.

However, its not just seen as a love story. Others have seen it as a powerful and moving plea to understand the cultural intermingling and hybridity that defines both eastern and western cultures, and a convincing rejection of religious intolerance and ethnic essentialism.

Speaking to Asians in Media, William confirmed that soon after the book was published, he had offers from many groups, including Tara Arts. But in the end he decided to go with Tamasha. "What made the difference was that Tamasha had the wonderful idea of having Christopher Hampton do the it. Frankly he's as good as an adaptor as you could possibly want", he explained.

Sounding quite pleased, William adds, "What is nice is that the book has succeeded on separate levels... I just feel someone is looking after me somewhere". He said he was a bit unsure about how it would perform in India, specially as an Englishman "gora" writing about Mughal history. But he said "I'm very proud the book has done very well in India".

AiM also caught up with Sudha Buchar, who's leading the project at Tamasha, currently preparing for their Strictly Dandia project for the Edinburgh International Festival. Commenting on why she was attracted to doing something with the book, she said "I'm a real fan of his work. I couldn't put the book down, and it had an amazing insight. You normally get the 'Raj' story by white guys. But here was a story about a white guy going native in India."

"The story in itself is an eye opener. But it also speaks volumes to people today. We think there are insurmountable barriers to cultural integration, but this book shows otherwise", she further added. "We have already approached a writer who's very keen. We're trying to broker a deal, and once that is done, we'll go ahead with the project."

William also revealed that the he was in negotiation to bring his book to TV screens. "I had about 15 approaches from companies to make White Mughals for the big screen, including Amir Khan and Ismail Merchant. The two proposals that were most promising were by Shekhar Kapoor and HBO, who are thinking about doing co-production with BBC".

HBO's plans, which he said were the most exciting, are to turn it into a $60 million six hour mini-series. Again, Christopher Hampton is likely to do the screenplay, but he said they ideally needed an Indian director. For that, Shekhar Kapoor (who's working on a sequel to his Oscar nominated 'Elizabeth') or Udayan Prasad (My son the fanatic) were possibilities they were exploring.

You can find out more about William Dalrymple on his website. The book can be bought on Amazon.co.uk from here.