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It is perhaps axiomatic that charisma­tic leadership absorbed in the projection of its charisma, is followed by nuts-and-­bolts leadership. Of the latter, President Sadat of Egypt is an instructive example. His six years as Egypt’s Head of State have been a remarkably open account of involvement…

There is no clarification in the pre­face about the ‘experimental’ nature of this autobiography; there is instead a brief account of the unhappy circumstan­ces in which this book came to be writ­ten. At the age of 60, says Mr. Abbas, it struck him at the instigation of a friend that he had led an interesting life…

One of the stock criticisms of the post-Independence I.C.S. is that it is totally devoid of unusual individuals. Unique­ness and occasional eccentricity, it has been said, vanished with the British.

Thakura Ghara, the Sahitya Akademi award winning book of 1976, is the fifth and the latest collection of short stories by the author. ‘God’s Apartment’ is the vantage point from which the author sur­veys the middle class world.

Mathura is a miracle in itself. In its imperial past, it was a scene of high civili­zation, a centre of attraction for far-flung peoples. It remains a magnet; scores of visitors continue to flock there, drawn now not by temporal glory but by the magic of the Krishna legend…