THE PRETTINESS OF RHINO MAIDENS AND OTHER UN-WAGNERIAN JUNGLEENESSES Mukul Kesavan by the inimitable Mukul Kesavan One day, in about 1981, looking in his pigeonhole at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was an M.Phil. student, Mukul Kesavan found a card from his supervisor Chris Bayly which included the line: ‘Cambridge isn ’ t yet a holiday resort!’ The implication was that Kesavan better move it a bit on things academic. Later, Bayly presciently wondered if a career in journalism might not suit Kesavan well. A year or so later, while granting him his M.Phil., Kesavan’s external examiner Francis Robinson felt that with a little more effort the M.Phil. could be worked up into a Ph.D. Kesavan, thanking his stars for not having the money to work further at the wretched thesis, fled that corner of his foreign field happily clutching the M.Phil. Over the subsequent years he went back to Cambridge often, but mostly for the pleasure of punting on the Cam. T