Tahir, however, does not seek to occupy the high ground and makes no attempt at profundity. He is an entertainer and a good story-teller and has crafted his work well. He can laugh at himself as well as at others, which makes the reader warm to his work. Gita Mehta occupied comparable territory as a satirical observer of the magician and godman scene in India two decades ago. She remained firmly a voyeur in her observations of the wilder and more confused enthusiasms of Western youth in search of nirvana. Travel writers can rarely resist occupying centrestage. The urge to be a deus ex machina is hard to avoid. Autobiographers, by definition, often encounter the same difficulty. Tahir, however, combines both genres with an easy, good-humoured sense of perspective. He encourages the reader to take the world around him, including himself, a little less seriouly. This is the hallmark of a good comic. It is aided by the mock solemnity in the cadence and vocabulary of the writing.