A polymath of our time, Ashis Nandy's writings and arguments have enriched our thinking for over four decades. Unafraid to walk a difficult terrain, he is one of the most radical public intellectuals of our time.

In this book Nandy talks about a new India, where the fate of the country is largely decided by its political culture that has become the domain of two predominant psychological states: narcissism and despair. Looking at the nationalism of Gandhi and Tagore, Savarkar, and Madanlal Pahwa, and cultural psychology, terror and counter-terror, humiliation and human degradation, happiness, and modernity and the sense of loss,the essays open up the future for the next generation of intellectuals and political activists in India and in other societies.