Deena Khatkhate is that rare Indian intellectual who is not a captive of ideology or a slave of fashion. As this wonderfully wide-ranging collection of essays shows, he is very much his own man. In interpreting India to America and America to India, the essays operate in different registers—the sentimental and the analytical, the personal and the political, the skeptical and the critical. But they are consistently readable and often provocative. Even if one disagrees with Khatkhate—and I sometimes did—one is always stimulated by the originality of his arguments and the transparent sincerity of the man.

Ramachandra Guha, author of India after Gandhi

"[Khatkhate's] criticism of American racism is as fearless as of India's caste inequalities, and many of these articles will be read with as much pleasure as pain by old friends in both nations' capitals."

Stanley Wolpert, professor emeritus of history, University of California, Los Angeles; author of The Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India

“Few have followed India over the last three decades as closely as Deena Khatkhate... This volume is a collection of Deena’s writings on matters other than economic. They will inform the reader—and they will trigger him into thinking matters through.”

Arun Shourie, author of nineteen books; recipient of international awards including "World Press Freedom Heroes" and the ”Magsaysay Award”

"I disagree with much of what Deena Khatkhate says, but he says it well. Although he calls his book "Ruminations of A Gadfly", his trenchant, lively writings over the years often have the sting of a mosquito and have no doubt provoked fulminations on the part of many of his victims."

Selig S. Harrison, author of India: The Most Dangerous Decades

"Khatkate writes with verve and wit, and with erudition that reminds one of the best writers on public policy in economics. These essays... are both acute in their observations and enjoyable on their elegance. Buy, read, and treasure them.”

Padma Desai, Gladys and Roland Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems, Columbia University, New York

This book is a collection of unusual writings of the well-acclaimed economist, Deena Khatkhate.

The volume represents different facets of the author’s intellectual personality. He is a keen observer of societies and societal changes in India and abroad. His reflections as a social scientist with “out of the box“ thinking on politics, economics, institutions, social mores, race, family, law, classes, ideology, etc. have a wide sweep. He sees in the world around him—good and bad, profound and profane, conviviality and conflict, hypocrisy and honesty, and approbation and opprobrium. The essays are written with rare sensitivity and insight; they acquire universality because the author looks at the world outside India from the eyes of an Indian national, looks at India from the eyes of an Indian emigrant to the developed land and reprises his own value system. He thus takes the readers into a world of new thoughts, emotion and experience.

Deena Khatkhate is a former director of research at the Reserve Bank of India, a former assistant director at the International Monetary Fund, and a former senior consultant for the United Nations and the World Bank. After early retirement from the IMF, he served as managing editor of the reputed academic journal World Development (earlier published by the Pergamon Press and now, the Elsevier). Dr. Khatkhate is the author of numerous articles on economic development and monetary policy, which have appeared from time to time in leading academic journals such as The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic and Political Weekly, The Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics, and Oxford Economic Papers.

Dr. Khatkhate lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA.