From modest beginnings in Fiji, a dot in the Pacific Ocean, to the dining tables of queens and prime ministers, Bhaichand Patel’s journey shows him to be the quintessential self-made man. Journalist, author, lawyer, diplomat, film critic, with a gift for mixing a potent cocktail–he has dived into every avocation with aplomb, and emerged with some great insights and plenty of stories. In I Am a Stranger Here Myself, he puts these together in a narrative that takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride all over the world–from Fiji, Bombay, London to New York, Cairo, Manila–coming to rest in the leafy environs of New Delhi’s Sujan Singh Park.Traipsing through the book’s pages are distinguished lawyers, judges, diplomats, journalists, politicians, authors, actors and directors–some down on their luck, others on the rise.An early practitioner of the work hard, party harder philosophy, Patel shows that life can be as difficult as we want to make it, or as much fun. As Henry Miller put it, ‘Do anything, but let it produce joy’.