Patna is not a nice place to be. It is home to me and I cannot stop wanting to go back every once in a while, wanting to be a part of its life. I say this even so: Patna is not a nice place to be.

In this masterful portrait of Patna, Sankarshan Thakur chronicles the way the city has changed-or not-under chief minister Nitish Kumar. Having grown up in Patna, the author gives an insider-outsider account of the city,and through it paints the big picture in Bihar, examining Nitish's achievements and failures.