Long before Prime Minister Narendra Modi went public with his monologues on the radio show, Mann Ki Baat, he was a private person, furiously recording his daily impressions on paper. Some were introspective, some self-deprecating, and some plain laments, but mostly they were disconnected ideas about life, people and politics. This stream of consciousness writing has made its way to Letters to Mother (HarperCollins India), a translation of his collection of Gujarati verse, originally titled
Saakshi Bhaav.

These are not letters to his 'ba'. Even though, the title may say so. The pieces here go back 34 years, to December 1986, when Modi, 36, was a party worker, and in the habit of writing letters to the Mother Goddess, whom he calls Jagat Janani, each night before he went to bed.