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Ashok Lahiri’s ‘India in Search of Glory’ is not only the story of India’s development since Independence and the policies followed, but also of the electoral logic of the policies and how that logic is changing with the transformation of Indians themselves. The book argues why India could not achieve more and what all it could have achieved. It paints a picture of its possible future and highlights the areas that need immediate attention.

The book is nothing but a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator to his daughter, but these letters weave a powerful story of longing, love and loss. The letters span the narrator’s life in India and England. Ultimately, however, these become a story about the new India, and how its economy can make, and then break a man who always wanted only to be no more — and no less — than a writer. Haunting and tender, ‘If I Could Tell’ speaks of hopes unfulfilled and promises unbroken.