I must say that this is a most enlightening book. This has caused me to think about Swami Vivekananda in a completely different light.

It is difficult, when more than a century has passed, to go back into the mind of someone, and that too, someone like Swami Vivekananda. At one level, I would say that the book is the result of a risky endeavour, as the good Swami is deified by many.

The choice of Muslims as ‘the enemy’ is interesting, given the fact of the rather rapacious attitude of the British in India. He found something to admire in them, and therefore it seemed easy to cast the Muslim community as ‘the enemy’, especially since they could not make an adequate rejoinder.

Swami Vivekananda’s insistence on Sanskrit is interesting, especially since it is a somewhat dead language. He does indeed show that, for all his admirable and formidable qualities, the Swami was indeed as flawed as many of us are. ( )