India, April 10 -- The thing about Atal Bihari Vajpayee was that he was not only a political leader but a good human being. It was this combination that made him a statesman. In the avalanche of fast-moving events, the vivid memories of recent history often fade away into sepia tones of collective amnesia, recalled only in the tokenisms of annual commemorative events. Vijay's book is an antidote to this eclipse. He has painstakingly collected photographs from multiple sources to build a rich visual gallery of the life and times of a truly great son of India.

Vajpayee's political journey is graphically brought about in the book. Born in a humble teacher's family in Gwalior and making his debut as a parliamentarian in the 1950s, he disting...