In 1968, when I was 17 (I have a birthday in December and turned 17 in December 1967) I lived in Bangalore, which in those days was a city of gardens, leafy avenues, green-gabled houses, and not yet on the world map the way it is today. I lived with my parents and two younger sisters in a small, Art Deco style house with charming moon windows, in a narrow, winding street called Brunton Cross Road just off Mahatma Gandhi (MG) Road. It was a sheltered life. I cycled to Mount Carmel College, where I was doing my Bachelor’s degree, with occasional excursions to the movies (the Lido theatre off MG Road was a major attraction), and regular visits to the Cubbon Park Public Library. We did not have television; we listened to the radio, and read the single newspaper that arrived every morning, and magazines like The Illustrated Weekly of India. My father, who was an avid tennis player, would take us along to the Rajendra Singhji Institute on MG Road to watch matches and to munch on the most delicious sandwiches.