Khushwant's recounting of the event—very even-toned, displaying no bias—shows up both women in rather poor light, no different in cunning thrust-and-parry than any middle class mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. If anything Mrs Gandhi comes out the worse, as she blusters and backs off alternately in a desperate attempt at reining in Maneka. Khushwant received most of his information about the event from Maneka, her sister, and her mother, and he corroborated each version against the other. Ironically, when the fracas erupted, Khushwant was one of the first people Maneka called from Mrs Gandhi's home requesting him to alert the foreign press. Later Khushwant and Maneka fell out. Now she wants his book canned. Understandably. But why are the courts obliging? What Khushwant has written about is in the public domain: the incident was widely covered in the press, and India Today's detailed account at the time was far more scathing, questioning the stature of leaders who "hitch up their saris to scream at each other like harridans in a bazaar brawl". What Khushwant writes about could notionally be called private, but it was being enacted in a fairly public arena, the prime minister's house, with public servants, including personal secretaries and police officers, thrown in.