Acknowledgements

I thank my wife Christine for her patience and the stream of hot black coffee until the early morning hours, and seeing to it that I did not fall off my chair, which helped me finish this book.

To my surviving brother and sisters, thank you for the faith.

My thanks go to Esha Beteille for her guidance as to where I could go with my manuscript.

I also thank my publisher Niyogi Books, and specially Dr Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee for taking up my work and transforming it into this publication.

And not in the least, I thank Vibha Kumar for her deft editing of the manuscript. I have benefitted enormously from her erudition.