“Why am I writing this book? . . . Will all of this make sense to my readers? I do not know, but I have to get this off my chest. I have to present this incredibly wonderful, crazy, and vulnerable friend of mine to the world. Because he deserves it, and I firmly believe, he had not ‘lost it’. . . I hope the reader will find the book interesting because there is a story in it . . . Of a deeply passionate Indian and world citizen. A citizen who, by using humor, the absurd, and the grotesque, attempted to unravel our times, and the world we had inherited. I first met him at the Film School in Pune in 1973 . . . He would become my friend, partner, and finally close confidante. His name was Kundan Shah. He was the one who, in 1987, said: ‘I know the psychology of rats.’ Kundan Shah died on 7 October 2017.”