Author's reminiscences of his life and times in Kolkata in the late 1940's and early 1950's, in effect a political and socio-cultural history of post-World War II and post-partition India, make a scholarly tome laced with deep studies and gripping accounts of a wide range of subjects: origin of Kolkata, controversy over traditional differences between people of east and west Bengal, portrayals of cultural, political, literary, academic, coffee house culture, economic and personages national and international, a unique tome.