India s Westernized elite, cut off from local traditions, want to write a full stop in a land where there are no full stops . From that striking insight Mark Tully has woven a superb series of stories which explore Calcutta, from the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad (probably the biggest religious festival in the world) to the televising of a Hindu epic. Throughout, he combines analysis of major issues with a feel for the fine texture and human realities of Indian life. The result is a revelation. 'The ten essays, written with clarity, warmth of feeling and critical balance and understanding, provide...

Mark Tully is incomparable. No one has a greater understanding of the passions, the contradictions, the humour, the tragedy and the staggering resilience that constitute India. In his long awaited new book, he delves further than ever before into this country of one billion people. Covering subjects as diverse as Hindu extremism, bonded child labour, Sufi mysticism, the crisis in agriculture, the persistence of political corruption and the problem of Kashmir, he paints a picture of India at once poignant, funny, startling and deeply humane.

As I write this in Lymington in 1978, the widow of an Indian Cavalry Officer I am a member of a dying breed. The last of the English "Memsahibs" left India over thirty years ago, at the time of partition, where a large number of them had spent the best years of their lives, between the ages of twenty and forty. Mine is only a very personal story, but I feel that the wives of these men who lived in a sense with their husbands permanently on active service, deserve a little of their husbands reflected glory. "A fascinating autobiography of a woman of great courage facing danger, disease,...