In Light of India

This rich volume began life as a lecture, delivered in Delhi in 1985 by Octavio Paz, poet and former Mexican ambassador to India. He expanded the lecture into this book: 'not a memoir, but rather an essay that attempts, with a few quick notes, to answer a question that goes beyond personal anecdotes: How does a Mexican writer, at the end of the twentieth century, view the immense reality of India?' The book, Paz says, 'is the child not of knowledge but of love'. The love of this writer is clearly no frothy affair: he has steeped himself in India's history, politics and culture(s), or at least been a deeply engaged, observant visitor. He wrote this book towards the end of his life, and the section on Hinduism, a brilliant essay on comparative religion, reads as a kind of summing up of everything he has learned about the human quest for transcendence. It is a joy to read, not least for the bright, shiny, epigrammatic gems scattered through it. ( )