Description

Author/Contributor(s):	Vassanji, M.G.
Publisher:	Anchor Canada
Date:	9/15/2009
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

A Globe and Mail Best Book

The inimitable M.G. Vassanji turns his eye to India, the homeland of his ancestors, in this powerfully moving tale of family and country. Part travelogue, part history, A Place Within is M.G. Vassanji’s intelligent and beautifully written journey to explore where he belongs.

It would take many lifetimes, it was said to me duringmy first visit, to see all of India. The desperation must have shown on my face toabsorb and digest all I possibly could. This was not something I had articulatedor resolved; and yet I recall an anxiety as I travelled the length and breadth ofthe country, senses raw to every new experience, that even in the distraction ofa blink I might miss something profoundly significant.

I was not born in India,nor were my parents; that might explain much in my expectation of that visit. Yethow many people go to the homeland of their grandparents with such a heartload ofexpectation and momentousness; such a desire to find themselves in everything theysee? Is it only India that clings thus, to those who’ve forsaken it; is this whyIndians in a foreign land seem always so desperate to seek each other out? What wasIndia to me?