Mukund Padmanabhan’s engrossing The Great Flap of 1942 tells of a series of events triggered, ironically, by a non-event. During World War II, as the British panicked over the possibility of a Japanese invasion of India, lives were disrupted, cities abandoned, and much chaos unleashed. In an email interview, Padmanabhan talks about this strange, surreal episode in Indian — and military — history.
