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Inspite of the Gods
The season of words has left the building. Meanwhile I have watched many good movies (not films, what commoners watch are movies) and read some enlightening books. Every one of them deserved an indepth review, which I faithfully do each day while I am in the shower. I am looking for a water resistant microphone to record my thoughts and an upgrade to Windows Vista probably, it supposedly has better speech recognition features, right? Maybe then I'd be able to update this blog more regularly.

But there is this book I've to return to the library in a couple of days, it has to leave its mark on these virtual pages - it is so damn good. Why are the best books on India written by foreigners? And by foreigner I do not mean Tom Freidman.

Inspite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce has been my bedtime storybook, bathroom reader,coffee table book and cook book(book I read while I cook) for the past one month. It is unnerving that a non-Indian could elicit India's secrets - black, white and grey with such uncanny accuracy. Edward Luce was the South Asia bureau chief of Financial Times stationed in New Delhi for five years from 2001 to 2006. Unlike over-the-top optimism suffered by Thomas Freidman in matters concerning India, Luce has a more realistic and almost 'desi' view of India.

I enjoy wallowing in pessimism, accordingly I've selected some choice quotes from the book, although there are not a lot in there.

"...As the joke goes, 'India never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.' India is also suffering from a premature spirit of triumphalism, believing it is destined to achieve greatness in the twenty-first century without having to do very much to assist the process. India is not on an autopilot to greatness. But it would take an incompetent pilot to crash the plane. As Vijay Kelkar, one of India's wisest economists, has written, "The 21ST century is India's to lose."

Expertly navigating through all topics pertinent to modern India - Ambanis, Golden Quadrilateral highway, AIDS, Nehru's socialism, Dil Chahta Hai, Swaraj, Auroville, NGOs, IITs, MTNL, Dalits. V.J.Kurien, Cochin International Airport, Ashoka's edicts, Kashmir, Film City, Abdul Kalam, ISRO, the sclerotic legal system, RSS, Lalu, ISI, child labor, Taj Mahal, Sri Sri Ravishankar, NAM, Gujarat riots, Sonai Gandhi, Arun Jaitley, Taliban, Sanskritization, Mullahs of Deoband,Sepoy Mutiny, Nandan Nilekani, SEWA - I could go on about the myriad topics covered by the book like the lyrics of Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire."

It begins like this, "It took a long time. But finally in the late 1990s India started to build roads that could get you from A to B at something better than a canter. Until then, India's most significant highway was the Grand Trunk Road which bisects the country from north to south. Laid at various stages by the late medieval Mughal dynasty..."

and ends like this,

"Someone once said to me: 'Remember, India always wins.' India has a way of confounding you and still making you laugh about it."

and inbetween these lines, spread across 300+ pages is an India, I now know a little better. All credit to Edward Luce. By writing such an engaging book Mr.Luce is slotted to become the recipient of the dollar donation I make each year to a chosen first-worlder. This year the amount is $16.38 thanks to free shipping.