GARDEN OF FOOLS BY ROBERT HUTCHISON (HARDCOVER)

The looming spectre of death in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab made Proby Cautley wonder about the dichotomy of famin being a land of abundance. An artillery officer by training, the unlikely civil engineer in the East India Company’s service – channelling the pristine snow-melt waters from the Himalayas into the parched fields through a network of unforgiving shadows of famine. It was a gritty struggle – fighting a recalcitrant colonial bureaucracy for approval and petty rivalry of other technocrats within John Company’ hierarchy and disarming local superstitions.