Mandira’s Lost Compass on the River Bank reflects at a personal level her long association with the Ghaats. Her assemblage of poetry in this book brings mystic symbolism into a river that cleanses our soul, a city that borrows from civilization and evolves into rituals of mundane life and lines which define our existential basics leading to self-realization. Reading her earlier published prose and poetry, I used to pester her for verses on her love for Kolkata and her deep study on river and ghaats and now, lo and behold, we are richly rewarded by the offeringLost Compass on the River Bank.