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They’ve run motels in America, fought apartheid in South Africa, sold opium to China and financed the Indian National Army. They are the richest yet their poor clean drains. Hospitable yet calculating, worldly-wise while claiming to be spiritual. They build a sense of self and the community and then take it too far, making ‘others’ out of Dalits, Muslims and denotified tribes. Gujaratis see nothing wrong in their contradictions. This work draws on original research and a lifetime of observing the community the author was born into.

Tracing his life trajectory from childhood and through the decades as a professional musician, Carnatic artiste Sanjay Subrahmanyan takes a close look at the nuts and bolts of the industry. Known for his mastery of the craft as well as for his intellectual and theoretical depth of understanding of the art, this autobiography is a refreshing portrait of the artist as a man of flesh and blood as well as a rare insight into the musical practice of one of Indian music’s cult figures.

The US has proposed ‘a new Middle East’. The Abraham Accords of 2020 saw four Arab countries normalise their ties with Israel, laying the foundations of the new regional realignment. But these shifts ignore West Asia’s ‘original sin’, the unresolved question of Palestine. Based on his multiple visits to the region and dozens of interviews, Stanly Johny traces the roots of the conflict.