CHRONICLES OF TIME AND CHANCE They recount how, as a young District Officer,

They recount how, as a young District Officer, the author confronted both the cultural challenges of rural postings in the extreme south and the implications of being a fledgling Guardian and how, in New Delhi later on, he experienced the bloodletting of August 1947. He questions the myths, action models and growing corruption of the new Indian ruling class of which he was himself a part as he rose to the higher ranks of the central and state bureaucracy. The books concluding chapters capture the political manoeuvrings of the last Nehru years as well as the prime ministerial life and times of his still undervalued successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri.