Through his poems, criticism, translations, and edited books, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra has played a major role in defining Indian literature in English. This, his second essay collection, carries all the elegance, incisiveness, and erudition of his first, partial recall. Some of the essays here are on an unexamined piece by toru Dutt; an old appreciation of Amrita Sher-Gil by an obscure critic; the almost forgotten Srinivas rayaprol who corresponded with William Carlos Williams; Arun Kolkata's unknown early poems and his letters to his first love, Darshan chhabda; Eunice de Souza, admired for her sparseness and acerbic feminism; and the reclusive dickinsonian poet Reshma Aquil who loved anonymity.