Coastal Contacts: Oman in the Indian Imagination Priyanka Sacheti Sandhya Mehta Abstract: The last couple of decades of the last century and the first one of this one have, inarguably, witnessed a phenomenal rise in the studies of writing by Indians in various genres. A major aspect of this writing is the substantial production emerging from the Indian diaspora in various parts of the world. While the literary achievements of the Indian expatriates in the west have been exhaustively documented, there remains a wide vacuum where the Middle East is concerned. While it is a cliché to suggest that the host country of residence influences the creativity of a literary artist, the nature of this interchange in Oman remains largely under wraps. This paper attempts to fill that gap by introducing historical narratives of the Indian diaspora in Oman by tracing the earliest available works as well as focusing on contemporary Indian writers to explore the multitudinous ways in which Oman has become part of the consciousness of the Indian imagination. Keywords: Indian Diaspora in Oman, historical ties, literature and art, oral narratives, Indian writers and painters in Oman One of the earliest pieces of anecdotal evidence attesting to Indian presence in Muscat emerges in a narrative on Indian traders around ١٧٨٠ in present-day Muttrah area. Using the historical details provided in the accounts of Ibn Ruzaiq and al-Salimi, Calvin Allen (١٩٨١) describes how an Indian ‘Baniyan’ merchant had acted as a supply agent for the Portuguese garrison in Muscat. This man became dissatisfied, especially when the commander of the group asked to marry his daughter. This agent, it is said, helped to remove the Portuguese possessions from Muscat and from then on, Allen suggests, Hindu merchants seem to have been exempted from paying taxes to the Ya’aribah government in the seafront of the Muscat port. This, although not an unexpected occurrence in medieval Indian kingdoms, is interesting in this case for two different reasons. For one, it reflects on the strategic and economic clout of Indian merchants in Muscat in the eighteenth century and, more relevantly here, it suggests the presence of diasporic families in this part of the world at a time when there was little mention of anyone accompanying the merchants as they set foot on the soils of alien countries from the shores of Kutch, Malabar and Coromandel. While it is undeniable that Indo-Arab and, more particularly, Indo-Oman ties have existed from times, literally, immemorial as evidenced by archeological finds, the dynamics of this relationship at a personal level is an area much ignored by historical and sociological studies. While most research in the recent past has dwelt on areas of economic development and trade flows ( Karayil, ٢٠٠٧, Rehman, ٢٠٠٩), the human