Colombo has captivated discerning visitors for centuries -- but it has often been given short shrift by travel writers steaming in from the sweaty bustle of port-cities in the Indian subcontinent to the north. With this literary excavation, Ajay Kamalakaran delicately peels back layers of intricate history to reveal the city in its cinnamon-scented glory: enticing. intriguingly complex and warm in its embrace. A treat for tourists and residents alike. - Naresh Fernandes, editor, Scroll

Ajay Kamalakaran is known to readers in India as an archival detective, writing on unusual, intriguing, and outlandish personages and themes in recent years. A combination of deep research and deft prose mark his espresso-shot essays. In this collection, he turns his attention to Colombo, that midpoint in the Indian Ocean between east and west, in the great age of oceanic travel in the colonial period. Ceylon, Sri Lanka, once known as Serendib to Arab seafarers, from which we get that plangent noun, serendipity. This marvellous collection of essays has a cast of characters from Gandhi, Don Bradman, Mark Twain, and Chekhov to lesser known, yet fascinating figures like Urabi Pasha. The reader discovers with great pleasure what they did not know that they needed to know. A gem of a book. - Dilip Menon, Historian and Professor of History and International Relations, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

Ajay Kam