Prelude;
Book One:
The 1940s: Friends, Family, and the Furies;
1947: 'The Dawn So Stained, So Stained' Faiz Ahmed Faiz;
1948: Stopping Three Bullets in Their Tracks;
1949: House of Power;
Book Two:
1950: No Regrets?;
1951: The Games of Power;
1952: The Most Important Man Alive;
1953: Hindustan Calls;
1954: Panchsheel-Panacea or...?;
1955: Remapping India;
1956: Apsara Dancer in the Court of Indra;
1957: A Throne Amidst Thorns;
1958: Science, Secrets, and Scandals;
1959: Swatantra;
Book Three:
1960: A Year of Sensations;
1961: 'Th' Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame'-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 129;
1962: Perfidy;
1963: I Spy With My Little Eye;
1964: ...A Flame Vanishes;
1965: Five Feet Two and So Tall;
1966: 'Ayyo, Ayyayyiyyo!';
1967: Goodness to Goodness.;
1968: Whose Service?;
1969: To Brahm or Not to Brahm;
Book Four:
1970: No Less Hideous Than Rape;
1971: Sir...Look at These Ballots... Stuffed Into the Box...;
1972: Now We Are Beggars....;
1973: Something Ashoka Would Have Lauded, Lincoln Seen As Noble;
1974: Watching With Anxiety;
1975: Life Normal in Delhi;
1976: Walls Acquire Ears, Speech Disappears;
1977: Epiphany;
1978: A Little India in Sri Lanka;
1979: Told He Had 'Died', JP Smiled;
Book Five:
1980: Karma;
1981: As if God Did Not Exist;
1982: Kandy Is So Much Like Kerala;
1983: Card Games;
1984: Sare Jahan Se Achha?;
1985: A Different Nehru;
1986: Who Rules India?;
1987: The Right Man in the Right Place;
1988: Bharat Ratna;
1989: Justice;
Book Six:
1990: If There Be a Field of War on Earth, It Is Here, It is Here, It is Here;
1991: 'Yeh Kya Hua Hai?';
1992: A Civilizational Collapse?;
1993: The Quaking Earth;
1994: Why Is Our Land the Theatre of Trauma After Trauma?;
1995: Mystifying Milk;
1996-97: Rainbowing a Nation;
1998: 1, Kocheril Raman Narayanan....;
1999: Bloody, Bloody Beasts. Bloody Beasts;
Book Seven:
2000: The Constitution, Democracy, Secularism, and Fundamental Rights;
2001: Words as Diplomacy-Sri Lanka;
2002: Wheels Within Wheels-Norway;
2003: Surjeet, Shatrughan, and Shiv Sharma in Oslo;
2004: Prime Minister Vajpayee Submits His Resignation;
2005: Raj Bhavan, Kolkata;
2006: Raj Bhavan, Patna;
2007: A Year to Wish Away;
2008: Je Pathe Jete Hobey.... (On the Road You Have Taken....);
2009: Welcome Home, Former Governor;
Book Eight:
2010-25: Into the Modi Era;
Epilogue;
Acknowledgements;
Endnotes;
Index.

The book is divided into eight sections. The first section deals with the hopes and dreams of a newly independent nation, and the tragic events of Partition following the birth of the nation. This remarkable memoir, and history of India after Independence, by one of India’s most distinguished public intellectuals, begins with his memories, at the age of three, of the assassination of his paternal grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi. From this poignant opening note, the book expands into numerous encounters with personalities both Indian and foreign, ‘eminent’ as well as little known, and original insights into key events and turning points of modern Indian history, many of which he was an eyewitness to as secretary to presidents R. Venkataraman and K. R. Narayanan, and as governor of West Bengal and Bihar.