An End to Suffering by Pankaj Mishra

In middle of Pankaj Mishra's An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World and while not sure about the book's promises yet but realized that he is a stunning writer to be reading. He may sound masochistic at times but remains profound, if nothing more. And that would be an understatement about him. A very brief excerpt from the prologue below:

I had taken to Delhi my provincial ability to be quickly impressed, and a hunger for new adventures, possibilities of growth. In well-protected enclaves, there were libraries and bookshops, cultural sections of foreign embassies, film festivals and book readings. there were even- if you had the money and the confidence- a dozen five-star hotels. But these excitements were temporary- best possessed at a high level of wealth and security, and maintained beyond the first few minutes only if, after the new European film, you were returning in an air-conditioned car to house with high walls. For to emerge into a humid night from the pavement with the limbless beggars; to push and elbow then to watch with a foolish little twinge of privilege the stranded men at the bus stops, was to be robbed of the new and fragile sensations of the previous few hours; it was to have yet again a sense of hollowness of the city's promise and the mean anonymity of the lives it contained; it was to know the city as a setting not of pleasure but of work and struggle.

I guess, I will have a lot more to say about the author and the book when, once I calmly slide the bookmark in between the thin last page and the thick rear cover. More to follow. Hopeful.