In a recent interview Seth said, "It is the first very personal, non-fictional thing I have written. Non-fiction is intrinsically a more sober thing. You are forced into certain questions and you are right up against reality."

The reality in this case is the "Two Lives" of the book which belong to Seth's great-uncle and aunt but perhaps a more descriptive title would have been "Many Lives" because it is as much Seth's own story as it is the story of his extended family and the friends who touched all their lives in various ways.

Seth's parents played an important part in suggesting this subject for a book and Seth drew extensively on their memories and correspondence as well as his own to put together this memoir-cum-biography-cum-historical and social commentary. In a brief biographical section he reveals the frustrations and travails of a writer's life that far from being "casual insouciance" is in fact an extraordinary talent that he says, has been nurtured by circumstance rather than any concentrated effort. Seth describes himself as "often crippled by procrastination." He said in an interview that, "I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything. I enjoy abandoning myself in writing, obviously, but also, you know, in hours and hours watching Columbo on TV or late-night American football or whatever." If his obsessions result in this quality of work we, his readers, surely have no objection!

Two Lives begins when, as a young and rather naïve seventeen year old, Seth arrived in England after completing his studies at Doon School, for a college preparatory course with the eventual aim of admission to Oxbridge. In keeping with the South Asian tradition of maintaining contact with family no matter where one travels abroad, Seth went to live with his maternal grandfather's brother, "Shanti Uncle" and his German wife, "Aunty Henny." During school holidays and the college years in England carrying on to his long "exile" in America, Seth spent a lot of time with this childless couple and their relationship became warm and loving over the years. It is their stories that Seth recounts in this sensitive and moving biography.

After setting the background of the Seth family of Biswan in colonial India, which is a fascinating tale in itself, Seth recounts how Shanti was sent to Berlin to study dentistry in the final years of the Weimar Republic. He lodged with Mrs. Caro and her two young daughters, Lola and Henny, and son, Hans. Cultured and popular the Caros were intensely patriotic, putting their German nationality ahead of their Jewish identity. In fact when Mrs. Caro wanted to take Shanti as a lodger, Henny's first reaction was, "Don't take the black man!"

But eventually the young people became friends. The photos that survive of the time reveal an almost idyllic existence of picnics and boating on the river and parties and outings where both Henny's elegance and poise as well as Shanti's obvious Indianness is most noticeable. However the idyll was short lived because Hitler came to power in 1933 and the issue of racial origin began to affect their lives. Henny lost her job in an insurance firm because of the new anti-Jewish regulations and Shanti, unable to find work in Berlin, although fully qualified, moved to England. In 1938 Henny also moved to London leaving her beloved mother and sister behind because she was the only one who could obtain the necessary papers with which to travel. In England the friendship between Henny and Shanti continued and became even closer.

When the war began Shanti joined the Army Dental Corps and served in North Africa and Italy where during the battle for Monte Cassino, he lost an arm. This was a devastating blow for a dentist but the intrepid Shanti took it in his stride. Upon his return he developed a style for a one armed dentist and with his artificial limb in place set up his own dental surgery. Only then did he ask Henny to marry him. As Seth writes, "They were friends for over five decades and married for three."

In his account of this unlikely relationship the qualities that make Seth a great writer are clearly evident. Even as a young man he reveals an instinctive understanding of human relationships and emotions as he chronicles the sometimes acerbic relationship between the stocky Indian dentist and his reserved and brisk German wife. Later on, with the book in mind, he was to conduct eleven long interviews with Shanti but by that time Shanti was quite old and ill therefore there were gaps and omissions in the narrative that had to be filled in by research into collective memories. To make the task more difficult was the fact that during Henny's lifetime she never discussed her past or even referred to it, although she appeared to be closer and more affectionate with the young "Vicky" than she was with anyone else. After her death, the bereaved Shanti destroyed almost all the letters, photographs and other documents of their life together; therefore there was very little to go on and Seth almost abandoned the project. Then a most fortuitous discovery in the attic of the old house in London unearthed a cache of letters written to and by Henny. She had kept carbon copies of much of her correspondence as well as many old photographs and documents.

Armed with these, Seth turned to painstaking research that led to pre-war Germany and eventually to the violent and sometimes grisly events of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Here he discovered a tale of courage and friendship as well as of betrayal and moral cowardice. The complex but lucid account of these lives and the seemingly effortless weaving together of a narrative that is factual as well as meditative makes for fascinating reading. As one reviewer put it: "Seth dwells on identity, exile and alienation, on the de-humanization of racism, and those acts of spontaneous generosity which restore one's faith in humanity."

Seth, with his gift for characterization, uses his pen like a camera -- zooming in on the tiny details of individual lives then pulling back to broaden his focus to include India in the dying days of the Raj, the rise of Nazi Germany, the Jewish question and its Final Solution and even the genesis and roots of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But despite the broad canvas on which it is painted this is still an intimate family story and one is constantly amazed at how much of himself Seth is willing to reveal without any sentimentality. For example the last part of the story has poignant and even tragic overtones because after Henny's death Shanti became what can only be described kindly as "eccentric." His slow deterioration as a human being, his descent into senility and dementia and the reaction of family and friends, is described in almost clinical detail but with an empathy that is strangely moving.

Altogether an excellent read, this unusual book with its richness of detail, thought-provoking insights and beautiful but simple prose reaffirms my admiration for Vikram Seth a hundredfold.

Yasmeen Murshed is a full-time bookworm and a part-time educationist . She is also the founder of Scholastica School.