He begins at the beginning and ends very near the end. The book glows with the sense of ending without, however, any trace of morbidity or self-pity. The early part, where Bhisham tenderly evokes his earliest memories and records his childhood in an affectionate middle-class family in Rawalpindi, is for me the most moving part of this self-portrait. With characteristic elegance and an unfailing eye for the significant detail, the elderly author looks back with nostalgic longing at the world of his childhood and achieves a small but brilliant portrait of the artist as a little child.