Contemporary History told through One Man’s Story

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GP CAPT DEB GOHAIN

Some books carry you along like rivers — meandering through landscapes, pausing at bends, gathering depth and colour as they go. Industani: Six Degrees of Separation is one such journey. On the surface, it is the story of one man — Shiv Kunal Verma — but within its pages lies a chronicle of India’s contemporary history, seen through the eyes of someone who has lived it from both the ground and the sky.

I approached the book expecting a memoir, perhaps another tale of a military brat growing up within cantonment walls. What I discovered instead was a panoramic reflection on post-Independence India — a life intersecting with the nation’s institutions, its wild spaces, its conflicts and its contradictions. Verma, nicknamed “Fauji” at Doon School, writes with