Madhav Godbole, Union Home Secretary, had to seek premature retirement in March 1993, nearly eighteen months before he was due to do so. This event was widely reported and extensively debated in the media.

Ending all speculation, the author, for the first time, narrates in his memoirs the events that prompted his decision to resign from government service. In a narrative that is both candid and absorbing, the author, a civil servant known for his integrity, takes the reader behind the scenes, to the world of Indian bureaucracy and realpolitik.

Tracing his career from his days as Assistant Collector in the districts of Maharashtra, Madhav Godbole gives the reader an honest and meticulous account of his association with the Indian Administrative Service. In his long and eventful career, the author experienced the perils and pitfalls of opposing a minister’s say in the award of contracts and of antagonising the powerful house of the Ambanis. He recounts the days of the Emergency, when certain politicians were bent on subverting the Constitution, making senior civil servants pawns in the game of power-brokering. The book also takes the reader through the painful events that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, and its aftermath. While commenting analytically on the world of Indian politics, he shows an insider’s concern and dismay at the dilution of standards and norms in the civil services.

The flows and counterflows of the narrative between the world of bureaucracy and the author’s personal world, make the book both unique and interesting for civil servants, political thinkers, and the general reader.