Book excerpt: After a hasty escape to Egypt to avoid punishment for his partner, Lord Greenwich's vast financial crimes, former Mombasa solicitor and gigolo, Manik Mudigonda, is forced to adapt to a life without parties and without company in pre-World War I Cairo. Once again, the rejected Brahmin prince from Benares tries to find a niche for himself in an alien land that doesn't initially seem to have a niche for a piebald, red-eyed, bulimic criminal lawyer without much self confidence, and yet it is in arid, claustrophobic, poorly governed British Egypt that Manik's professional and personal lives come into full bloom. Not only does Manik's legal career flourish against all odds, fighting for his criminal clients' rights to appeal, coping with embedded corruption, racism, and constant condescention, but also he succeeds at initiating his first monogamous relationship, hidden from the disapproving glare of Egyptian culture. An ode to resiliance in the face of unusual hardship, the synchronicity of strength and fragility of the human psyche, and the elusive, inexplicable nature of love, Manik Mudigonda tries to narrate his life, if for no other reason than to try to remember.