I am getting on in age, and if I do not speak my mind out now, when will I do so?’

Faced with the frantic, precarious times we live in, Saeed Akhtar Mirza attempts to unravel the meaning of words like terror and patriotism, democracy and national interest. Through essays that are tales and soliloquies, and stories within stories, he unravels the manufactured myths about nations and about the nature of power.

Memory in the Age of Amnesia is also a book about people: a Hindu refugee family adopts Saeed as their own, a history lesson on Timur the Lame, artisans with an unusual connection to a temple in Ellora … It is a collage created from stories about dreams and nightmares, hate and compassion, violence and repentance – and an enquiry into how our pasts led us to this present and the possibility that India’s future still holds.