India, Sept. 23 -- Forget Sonia Gandhi's upcoming memoir. Belonging is loaded with more baggage than the train taking you home, or where you think home is. Few other words carry such a load: physical, political, social, emotional, and economic. Even grammatical. Adding an "s" at the end turns it into an object. A noun that's also an apt verb. In myriad places, some person/group is objecting to another's claim of belonging there. It ranges from road rage to Gaza - and that's been going on since the Old Testament.

As for the book allegedly nixed by Penguin in India and saved by Harper Collins, raucous objections to its author have been relentless. How dare she claim any ownership rights to Indian polity? So what if her in-laws are an India...