Therein lies his charm and, if one is in a mind to quibble, his failing. The failing is that he doesn't seem to introspect much. His life has apparently run along a track as pure and straight as a railway line. Just as one does not argue with the absolute precision of two rails of polished steel extending towards the infinite horizon, so one absorbs the account he gives us of his youth, his trials, his setbacks and triumphs as if these events were all pre-ordained. But in the same way that one can hardly form an attachment to something as fixed in purpose as a railway line, it is difficult to feel close to the narrator of the many anecdotes which make up this story. There is very little, in this account, to help us understand by what stages a world-class talent like Laxman's is honed. He appears to have been like a force of nature, unstoppable once released upon reality.