First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India by B.G. Verghese Westland, 2010, 573 pp., Rs. 695, ISBN 9-7893-8028-3760

Verghese, B.G. has written several books in his multifaceted career, spanning over six decades. His latest work First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India is somewhat unique and is a summing up of his variegated experiences. It is a valuable addition to the body of work on India’s modern ‘general history’ on which, according to the author, little work has been done (p. xii). Apart from timeless accounts such as Ramachandra Guha’s India after Gandhi and Bipan Chandra, Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee’s India After Independence, most of the generic works, the author argues, revolve around very specific issues.