Indians have been writing prose and poetry in English for the past two centuries. Anthologies of the countrys poets and poems have appeared regularly, but it is difficult to come across a wide-ranging historical anthology of the Indian essay in English. This collection starts with Derozio in the 1820s and ends with writers admired for their prose in the twenty-first century. This pioneering assemblage of great Indian short prose within a single volume is equally impressive for its range. The reflective essay, the luminous memoir, the essay disguised as a story, the memorable prefatory article, the newspaper column that transcends its humdrum origins, the gossip piece that oozes literariness, the forgotten flower in the long-dead magazine, the satirical putdown all these find place here. A literary anthology also works as an alternative history. This volume resembles a map of middleclass Indias social life and aesthetic sensibilities from hybrid perspectives Indian and Western, feminine and masculine, anti-colonial and antinationalist. To be found in it are diverse characters in scattered locations including Victorian Calcutta, modern America, village Egypt, elevated Oxford, feudal Kerala, cosmopolitan Mumbai, bureaucratic Delhi, Buddhist Benares, Civil Lines Allahabad, and small-town India. The essays amuse, surprise, edify. The feelings and ideas in them provoke thought, compassion, and a sense of the wonder that was India..

Introduction: when the gas cylinder comes --
Chit-chat. Scandal. Tea parties. / Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-1831) --
The colonization of India / Anon. Hindu youth (Floruit 1830) --
The confessions of a young Bengal / Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838-1894) --
The street-music of Calcutta / Shoshee Chunder Dutt (1848-1964) --
The nation / Rabindrath Tagore (1861-1964) --
The tribal folk / Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) --
Tagore at Oxford / Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy (1890-1965) --
The Indian house-crow / Sálim Ali (1896-1987) --
Apologia pro scripta sua / Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897-1999) --
Calcutta / Sudhindranath Datta (1901-1960) --
Do we really want to keep them in a zoo? / Verrier Elwin (1902-1964) --
Elephant in the pit / R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) --
To remembver is to live again / Buddhadeva Bose (1908-1974) --
The Benares that was / G.V. Desani (1909-2000) --
My grandmother and the dirty English / Aubrey Menen (1912-1996) --
The Jellicut / M. Krishnan (1912-1996) --
Modern Indian art: imitating the forms of the past / Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941) --
With Shivan and Kitty in New Delhi / Santha Ramu Rau (1923-2009) --
Naipault's India and mine / Nissim Ezekiel (1924-2004) --
Nirvana of a maggot / Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002) --
My aunt Gracie / Qurratulain Hyder (1927-2007) --
An ordinary man / Ashok Mitra (1928-2018) --
108 varities / Dharma Kumar (1928-2001) --
Baua / Sheila Dhar (1929-2001) --
The three faces of an Indian / Victor Anant (1929-1999) --
House with nine rooms / Arun Kolatkar (1931-2004) --
The dining room. Winter evenings. Dining at the long tables. / Madhur Jaffrey (1933- ) --
The last time I saw Delhi / Ruskin Bond (1934- ) --
A secret connivance / Anita Desai (1937- ) --
On God / Dom Moraes (1938-2004) --
When Earth rose up to get me / Adil Jussawalla (1940- ) --
Patoler ma / Chitrita Banerji (1947- ) --
The Anglo-Indians / Irwin Allan Sealy (1951- ) --
In Whitman's country / Meena Alexander (1951-2018) --
Art as politics / Gautam Bhatia (1952- ) --
March / Shama Futehally (1952-2004) --
The imam and the Indian / Amitav Ghosh (1956- ) --
On not writing / Sara Rai (1956- ) --
The ugliness of the Indian male / Mukul Kesavan (1957- ) --
The coconuts of Bengal: brown men, white affinities / Ramachandra Guha (1958- ) --
Gandhi's styled life / Sunil Khilnani (1961- ) --
Sky above and grass below / Sohini Ghosh (1961- ) --
Another Booker flop / Sanjay Subrahmanyam (1961- ) --
Money matters / Amit Chaudhuri (1962- ) --
Mashobra / Pankaj Mishra (1069- ).