Indeed, Sundaram specifically refers to Kapuscinski’s desire to document important events as his reason for travelling to the Congo. That and his own desire to see a crisis. ‘I had lived in man’s genius for so long,’ he explains, ‘I wanted to know our destructive capacities.’ For a critic in India, more familiar with man’s destructive capacities than most, that isn’t much of a reason. One must assume, then, that Sundaram is simply enamoured with the idea of flying solo — aka roughing it as a stringer — in the dark continent. One must shrug and plod on with the review.