| The writings and speeches contained in this volume provide a contemporary chronicle of Pakistan over eight tumultuous years, from 2006 to 2014. |
| Those years witnessed momentous events such as Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming in October 2007 to compete in the general elections and then her tragic death/assassination two months later. Benazir did not live to see the general elections she had helped mid-wife. It was left to her widower Asif Ali Zardari to lead her Pakistan Peoples Party to victory in the general elections of 2008, and then defeat in the 2013 elections. |
| During this time, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Ali Chaudhry who had been removed through a dictat by General Pervez Musharraf in 2007 found himself restored two years later through a historic mass movement fomented by lawyers and civil society, supported behind the scenes by the Pakistan Army. |
| The country also saw General Musharraf exercising full power as president, then being removed with hollow ceremony from it, and more recently making an ill-advised attempt to recapture it by returning to Pakistan, where he has been kept under house arrest ever since. |
| This volume contains a number of obituaries of friends such as the painters Ismail Gulgee and Colin David, Indian prime minister I.K. Gujral, and this year the noted Indian scholar and columnist Khushwant Singh. It also includes fascinating pieces on personalities such as President M. Ayub Khan whose posthumous diaries ‘miraculously’ appeared, and on the South African who became a legend in his own lifetime - Nelson Mandela. |
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The articles in this volume on travel describe visits to South Africa, Kashmir, Dubai, Himachal Pradesh in India, and New York. Book Reviews reflect personal interests and friendships.
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