I enjoyed this. Naipaul has the marvelous skill of presenting keen observations about even the most mundane things. These observations together with his ability to write simple, moving prose brought back a lot of memories in me, many of which I did not know existed. His description of an Indian household from long ago was surprisingly similar to many real stories I knew. His ability to filter the mundane experiences from diverse places and present the ones that give a sense of the existence of some universal constants in life. Nowhere in the book, I felt that the plot has been contrived to play with the reader's emotions or the prose twisted in order to show off the author's writing caliber. The book reads like an honest, straightforward account and yet it is moving.