Saddam has just faded out of the scene and so have the other key members of his regime. The Muslims world over are flooded with self-loathing and helpless rage.

Several years ago, on a fateful night in a colonial house in Yercaud, Tamil Nadu, U.G. Krishnamurti made a bonfire of Chandrasekhar’s dreams.

There is some complelling purity about him, some way in which he captures a kind of longing that we all seem to have for a genuinely wise human being.

U.G. does not give you anything to replace your current belief system. But if you see how penetrating his analysis of human belief is, you may be forced to drop many of your most cherished ideas about life.