Ocean and narration -- Old world orders: Amitav Ghosh and the writing of nostalgia -- Post-manichaean aesthetics: Asian texts and lives -- Through Indian eyes: travel and the performance of ethnicity -- Commerce as romance: Mehta, Madhvani, Manji -- Lighting a candle on Mount Kilimanjaro: partnering with Nyerere -- Anti anti-Asianism and the politics of dissent: M. G. Vassanji’s The gunny sack -- Coda: Entangled lives.