V. K. Krishna Menon (1896-1974), once an international celebrity, colourful and controversial, was a man of many parts. He was a socialist by conviction, an ardent anti-imperialist, an Indian who fought against the British Empire from the heart of London, a popular councillor representing St. Pancras for 14 years, an editor of Penguin books, a friend of the underprevilaged and a fiery campaigner against injustice everywhere. Menon was a champion of world peace and an eloquent exponent of world disarmament. As the Defence Minister of India, productively he overhauled the system and upheld the idea of self-reliance with a great measure of success. But for his life long friend Nehru, he had been treated as an outcast by his own colleagues. For all his popularity, Menon remained a lonely man. A multi dimensional figure, he sank out of sight as a tragic hero. Hopefully the present volume is an attempt to recapture his mercurial personality in a sequence of dramatic scenes and redeem him from oblivion.
