Masud Khan, an English psychoanalyst of Indian origin, was born in 1924 in Montgomery (Sahival) in the Indian Punjab, and died in 1989 in London. Khan's father was a wealthy landowner who raised horses. His mother, a dancer, was only nineteen when he was born. His childhood, spent "between a polygamous father and a mother who was dreamy and distant," was certainly psychologically complex. Khan wanted to be his father's favorite, although he was treated as just another of his many children. The world in which he lived, the world of colonial India, was deeply divided according to sex, a complex caste system, and the various peoples of that diverse country. When he was eight years old, Khan was entrusted to a tutor trained at Oxford, who provided him with an extremely British education. He was deeply affected by the death of a sister when he was eighteen. His love for her was perhaps greater than for any other woman in his life. Her death...