Mofussil junction

"In this collection of essays, profiles and reportage, Ian Jack explores a wide and unlikely range of subjects, which he encountered in more than thirty years of reporting from India and its subcontinental neighbours. Some of the India he describes has vanished: the drift of coal smoke from passenger trains, tea drunk from clay kulhads at country junctions. Some of it remains obscure: Orwells birthplace in Motihari, the Anglo-Indian search for a homeland in McCluskiegunge. Some of it perseveres: the Nehru Gandhis, the distress, the politics, and the hospitality. The choice is eclectic: he…