The author, M P Joseph, a Civil Servant from the distant Indian state of Kerala spent many delightful years in Cambodia working for the UN when the country had just morphed from a war-torn Communist moth into a fascinating free market butterfly.
Through mesmerizing characters who personify the ancient soul of Cambodia and epitomize its modernizing mind, the author conjures up a vision of contemporary Cambodia and its people. Their lives and loves, their joys and tribulations, their hopes and their anguish, and most of all their innocence is captured in these delightfully inter-connected stories. The characters come alive to etch a never-before known Cambodia.
Written with a Maughamian touch, the book delves deep into the soul of Cambodia, a soul moulded by the ancient culture of Angkor and shaped by the more recent excesses of Pol Pot.
The fortitude of its people, their pluck and their courage in the face of adversities, their survival skills, as well as Cambodia's Indian past - both Hindu and Buddhist - and its present Indo-Chinese zest are woven seamlessly into the stories.
The book is an amusing essay into the modern soul of this ancient land. Now populated by a GenNext, who cannot yet forget their chilling past, the book is a journey into the heart of its people. A heart of innocence.
The author's Valentinian love for Cambodia, his honed observation and delightful humour makes this fictional stretched-travelogue a genre apart.
A must read for everyone - whether a traveller or not - interested in South East Asia, Indo-China or Cambodia.