Mofussil Junction
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Ian Jack
Penguin Books India
352 pages, Rs 599
In this collection of essays, profiles and reportage, Ian Jack explores a wide and unlikely range of subjects, which he encountered in more than 30 years of reporting from India and its subcontinental neighbours. Some of the India he describes has vanished: the drift of coal smoke from passenger trains, tea drunk from clay kulhads at country junctions. Some of it remains obscure: Orwell’s birthplace in Motihari, the Anglo-Indian search for a homeland in McCluskiegunge. Some of it perseveres: the Nehru–Gandhis, the distress, the politics, and the hospitality. But every piece in this selection is informed by the author’s acute insights and superb eye for detail.
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