Memoirs fascinate me: not just because like most humans I have an insatiable curiosity about other people’s lives but because of the landscapes embedded in memories that emerge defiantly from nostalgic syrup and startle you with a rare insight. Often, whole cities, regions, countries and cultures come alive—even in indifferent memoirs—because they provide the context for the way lives are shaped and destinies cast. How can one forget that once upon a time, when the Indian subcontinent comprised India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon as one seamless territory, our lives were interlocked with our neighbours in vivid relationships? Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian—these were not religions that separated us: they were faiths that bound us together.
October 2007, volume 31, No 10