“Inside every thinking Indian there is a Gandhian and a Marxist struggling for supremacy”, says Ramachandra Guha in the opening sentence of this wonderfully readable book of ideas, opinions and reflections. A substantial portion of the book expands on this salvo: it analyses Gandhians and pseudo-Gandhians, Marxists and anti-Marxists, Nehruvians and anti-Secularists, Democrats and Stalinists, scientists and historians, environmentalists and cricketers in short, it examines and discusses all those who comprise the intellectual life of thinking Indians today.