Srinagar, Dec. 17 -- In a crowded bookshelf of memoirs by retired officers of the Indian Foreign Service, a notable addition is Sudhir T. Devare's "Through a Diplomat's Lens: Capturing Momentous Times," published by Konark Publishers. Spanning a large part of four decades, from 1964 to 2001, the memories shared with readers are not confined to the author's experiences but offer a panoramic sweep of India's foreign policy interactions across various continents during some of the most troubled phases of the Cold War era. The background of Devare's work is the meager tradition of IFS biographies. The fact that even such men as K.P.S. Menon (Sr), Y.D. Gundevia and R.K. Dayal, who headed the ICS in its early phases, wrote voluminously, but tha...