One Life Is Enough

by Anjani Kumar Singh

English 262 pages 1 edition

‘Every person has a story. That story will often feature a village and in that village, a home. My story, being no different, starts with my village, Chamtha…[which] stands at the sangam —the confluence—of four districts: Patna, Samasthipur, Begusarai and Vaishali.’ Anjani Kumar Singh’s memoir begins with these lines. In the pages that follow, we witness a remarkable life unfolding—a life that is a ‘sangam’ of tradition and modernity; of formal education and lessons learnt through encounters with the diverse worlds of Bihar and India; of professional commitment and personal conviction; of public service and private passions. Together with fascinating insights about the challenges and satisfactions of governance and development work, Singh also shares his experiences of travelling across India and abroad; building one of the world’s finest collections of rare plants; and—his shining achievement—setting up the splendid Bihar Museum, a home for both classical and contemporary South Asian art, which compares with the best in the world. This book is among the most engaging and unusual memoirs of a public servant you will read. See the Hindi edition here