It is difficult not to praise Pallavi Aiyar's latest book...try as I might, I cannot, in a short book review do, justice to the delicately delineated and easy conversational way in which Aiyar leads her readers through her subject. All of the themes she explores are deadly serious, but not for a moment does she allow them to weigh the reader down. Her book is a conversation with the reader in which she describes encounters, explores what she has been struck by, and arrives at conclusions with the help of a focussed reading on the subject.

Prem Shankar Jha, Biblio