Writer, educationist and three-time Lok Sabha MP from Kolkata, Krishna Bose gives a compelling account of her journey from the time she was a schoolgirl witnessing some of the tragic scenes that accompanied Partition to her stint as chairperson of the Parliamentary standing committee on external affairs. Married into the family of Subhas Chandra Bose, her acute yet sympathetic observations in An Outsider in Politics illuminate the changing world of the Kolkata intelligentsia from the 1940s to the present day. She writes vividly of her experiences as an academic and a working mother and gives a ringside view of the drama of election campaigns, the complexities of parliamentary politics and the forces shaping India s foreign policy at the turn of the New millennium. This understated but elegantly written memoir combines intimate family and social history with a gripping political memoir.