Pande’s book comes at a time when retired top officials in intelligence and investigation agencies have been writing their memoirs. He has juxtaposed “profiles of courage” of investigators with a critique of a system where he says honest and dedicated officers have been reduced to a “minority” and are, in fact, an “endangered species.”

Calling the capital a haven for “touts and networkers,” Pande says that as Customs Chief, requests for customs waivers and clearances came within minutes of files landing on his desk. He writes: “The calls, messages and personal messages could be from anywhere, the Minister’s office, my own or any other Minister, some from the President’s Secretariat, MPs, politicians, Secretaries, heads of the department, senior bureaucrats and even businessmen, requests on such a scale could not have been made without a hope of success.”

When Rajiv Gandhi was PM, Pande claims, once he got a call at the airport from one of the PM’s “closest aides” who wanted a Congress party functionary to be “obliged” with a fax machine cleared in the personal baggage of a passenger. He writes, “I sought an appointment with this aide the next day. When I met him, I explained to him that messages not only led to violation of rules, but could cause embarrassment to that office. I managed to drive home the point and no such message was repeated thereafter. Despite the decadence in the system, one could sometimes prod politicians to sanity.”