This was Rambo’s America, where the drugs were fresh, Vietnam was more than a distant memory, and the Mujahideens were political friends who’d help beat the Soviets.

The city began as Calcutta, cradled gently by the tempestuous Hooghly. The river wasn’t shallow then, nor as muddy. The global networks...

How are we supposed to shed our colonial shackles if we keep fantasising about colonial times?