The Tale of a Beleaguered Soldier is a multi-dimensional narrative that centres round Manav whose active and passive association with people and events unravels Kashmir's tangled history to show how after centuries of Hindu rule, its original inhabitants, the Kashmiri Pandits, had to face oppression, forced conversions and a series of exiles at the hands of Muslim rulers. Apart from narrating a story of loss of homeland and exile, the Tale also deals with some lesser known aspects of Kashmir's Hindu past, which include the manifold contributions of its intellectuals, philosophers, aestheticians, and poets, and looks at political happenings differently from how they have been written about by some historians, which include Kashmir's transition to Islam and a number of significant events of the twentieth century.