The book is a study on community narratives which hinge on the interface of travelogue and history, through which evolves an important aspect of the history of Kerala. The study illustrates the historiographical potentialities of community and travel narratives by exploring the possibilities of diverse readings of the past. Through a close scrutiny of two early narratives, Tuhfat al-Mujahidin (16th century) and Varthamanappusthakam (18th century), the author tries to unravel some of the hitherto unnoticed contours of the cultural geography of the region from which evolved the state of Kerala. And by an alternative reading of history through these narratives it is argued that the nationalist non-religious imagination of the secular was tantamount to undermining minority identities. The two texts under analysis bring out the fact that the minority identities of the sixteenth century Mappila (Muslim) and the eighteenth century Nazrani (Christian) communities were shaped by religious imagination as against the nationalist assumptions. Accordingly, it has been well argued that in the colonial context in which these identity assertions were shaped had in the process as the