Normalising totalitarianism

One of the perils of moving on in age is that even the deep past appears to be so yesterday though decades may have passed. I cannot believe that it is almost four decades since Vikram Seth published his first book of prose — a fascinating travelogue through China and Tibet.

He was still a doctoral student, alluding to a dream of completing his PhD at Stanford (which he never did!); and had only published two small books of poems that did not get much attention. With the book From Heaven Lake, he announced the arrival of a powerful writer of prose as well. Given the heightened …