This extended trip away comprises a week to drive to Darwin, time in Darwin, then five weeks of birding and driving through four states. I have a month in Darwin and am selfishly commandeering time most days to write up an especially demanding chapter, that of India and Israel pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of obtaining nuclear energy.
The problem with tackling the early Indian story is that I’m interpreting the historical record aggressively. I’ve tons of research material but all of that is structured and oriented very differently to my proposed treatment. “My brain hurts,” I bemoan, in homage to Monty Python, as I slice and reassemble other historians’ work, and some archival research, into a coherent record of Bhabha’s nuclear efforts over the 1940s and 1950s. My brain hurts, indeed. Am I strong enough to reshape history?