And, yes, this is, to my mind, one of the leading leitmotifs of And The Rain My Drink. Dream. Dreams. Dreaming. All over the world we witness conflict: people willing to die to see their dreams realized to give hope for a better world for their children and their children’s children. Han Suyin spares no horrific details of the ways in which many hundreds died, on all sides, the physicality of the tortures, the terrible manner by which many saw their own end, the enormity of the entire jungle existence, the strict codes which all were expected to abide by and for breach of which many found themselves dead, the love stories of yearning young men and women who otherwise gave their all to the cause. We are confronted by all these issues as we read the book. How do we respond? How do we react? How do we read and interpret them? These and several other questions bog the mind as we put the book down and turn to our other chores. Pitted against the backdrop of the book, most of what we get preoccupied with seems puny, meager, small. The book’s theme is large, its pages full of pain and real suffering, and though the main platform for the book is now history, its vividness and capacity to move us beyond ourselves is telling. Like the great novels of a similar genre, And The Rain My Drink, is a tragic reminder of what humans do to one another and with one another when times are not good. Yes, there are glimpses into a humanity that is giving, caring, generous; but for the major part, human conduct and behavior leaves much to be desired when the tide turns against us. Is this book the proof or reproof? A warning, a prophecy or just one person’s rendition of a phase now fossilized? One simple sub-theme of the book is racism, at many different levels: is such a theme no longer relevant? Then there are the roles of women, young brides, old mothers, the kids … what roles do they play in the narrative? What roles do they play now?