India, Aug. 9 -- On a brief visit home to India in the last week of April, Ritu Sharma handed me a signed copy of Shakti: Tales of Power and Promise. It travelled back with me to Panama and waited, as books often do, for the right weekend. When I finally opened it, I read it with genuine pleasure. By the end, I was convinced that the author has written a book more intimate, thoughtful and enduring than its genre usually permits.

Ritu and I have known each other for many years. We trained together for about three and a half months in Mussoorie before our professional paths diverged: hers into the Indian Revenue Service, mine into the Foreign Service. Since then, I have followed her journey from a series of postings that has now brought me...