Let me, at the very outset, make a set of declarations. The author is a good friend of mine from my days at the Indian Express in the 1980s and I know various members of her family very well. Also, it was her husband, Virendra, who brought me into journalism from publishing where I was ruminating on a boring future in a dying industry.
But it’s not because of these personal connections I say here that she has written an outstanding book. It’s because the book has all the elements such a book should have— most notably that in spite of the personal suffering the Emergency caused her and her family, there is a total absence of rancour in her stories and anecdotes. That makes it a very good read. Kapoor also tells her stories with dry humour without making light of the matter at hand.
August 2015, volume 39, No 8