FRAGMENTS OF GRACE
By Pamela Constable,
HarperCollins, Rs 495

It might be tricky to categorize Fragments of Grace into a particular genre. The publisher marks it under the current affair/ memoir category, but it is more than that. It is a travelogue, political history and memoir of a foreign correspondent all rolled into one, written in a language of impassioned prose, sometimes poetical, at others subjective enough to raise a few eyebrows.

According to the author ? a foreign correspondent of The Washington Post ? the book was conceived in 2001 when she was travelling in Afghanistan and four of her colleagues were shot dead on the highway while she managed to escape alive. Her reports as a correspondent can be expected to have been written in a cold and detached prose. But while writing this book, she opens up possibly as never before, writing subjectively, digressing at will, flitting from south Asia to her hometown in Connecticut, and writing about Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Fragments of Grace (the words are of the Guatemalan songwriter, Ricardo Arjona) is of modest length and Constable has divided her book into nine long chapters with poetical titles. It covers her sojourn in the trouble spots of south Asia. But most of the chapters deal with her stay in Afghanistan in the taliban and post-taliban era and give us some idea of the excesses committed during these periods. But while she is writing about these troubled areas, she simultaneously manages to tell us much about her own self ? her life, work schedule and personal details of her family.

The book also give an insight into the lives of ordinary individuals living in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka and trying to make the best out of the worst of situations. But Constable remains an outsider for whom the religious, cultural, social, even day-to-day life in this part of the world is unintelligible, difficult, backward, dull and dirty. Not just Afghanistan, even New Delhi is, for Constable, ?sweltering?full of wheedling beggars and haughty clerks and gloppy food and infuriating traffic.? But what is appealing is how Constable holds up the picture of people living amidst sordid realities ? thereby illustrating the tremendous potential of the human self. She looks for those ?fragments of grace? that make these people go on.

Constable seems to become wistful while writing about herself. There is an element of regret in that she could not enjoy the fireside comfort of a married life, have children of her own and lead a settled life. She is constantly shifting homes, travelling to the remotest corners of the world. But there is also a lyrical sentimentality running throughout the book that will appeal to some. Whether one agrees with Constable?s ideas about the region or disapproves of her style of writing, most will agree that once started, Fragments of Grace will be a difficult book to be put aside.