On a freezing January night three years ago two journalists queued up to board the train to Pakistan. The Attari-Samjhauta Express stood at the Old Delhi railway station decorated with buntings, gold and silver paper stars and rose and marigold garlands. The train had been suspended after the attack on...

Franz Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' has haunted West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee since his university days. There are many interpretations of the play, the most popular one, being how a salesman wakes up in bed one night to find himself transformed into "monstrous vermin" or a "bug" or an "insect." Buddhadeb...