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A Reluctant Bureaucrat is an incisive study of the administrative system in India interwoven with a personal account of life lived within the realm of active government service. The narrative comes to the reader straight from the Author's heart as a way to deal with his loneliness and overwhelming grief when nature snatched away his beloved wife Kalpana in July 2012. Photos from his family archive compliment an account of unstinting dedication and the reluctance to compromise on core values even as he strove to make the system work. The resultant dilemma has been exquisitely handled. A Reluctant Bureaucrat is the richly told story of a life's journey, laced with traditional family values. The portrayal, without being drab or sensational, also carries a kind of prescription for ideal living - the triple mantra of healing, forgetting and forgiving - the author's response to the bitterness and negativity that constantly surround us. The fulfillment of this very aspiration, in order to attain the ultimate goal of self-actualization, remains the unfinished agenda for the Sutradhar of this narration. The episodic story of the author's life varies between the informative, instructive and sentimental, demonstrating, in the process, a resplendent veneer of power of faith, righteousness and a legitimate sense of pride in being Indian.