LUNCH WITH BS: Pico Iyer

Close your eyes, waggle a pencil over a map of the world, swoosh downwards. Attach the other end of the pencil to a compass and draw a circle, ala Alu in Amitav Ghosh's Circle of Reason.

The laws of probability dictate that wherever the pencil falls and whatever the circle encompasses, Pico Iyer has been within its circumference. As a writer of travel guides, initially; then as a wandering nomad with homes in four continents; as a global soul, a one-man bridge across cultures; as a public man with the ascetic soul of a monk.

Then you come to a circle in west Asia, and tick off Damascus, Syria