Two years after India’s independence, Solomon Abramovich Trone, a former director of the storied General Electric (GE) came to India and became a personal advisor on economy to Jawaharlal Nehru, joining an extraordinary band of people who participated in state-building after Independence. His memorandums to Nehru on planning, a product of Trone’s extensive tour of the country, in their observations on institutions and places provide an unlikely insight into the early days of Independen