Reviewer Bani Sodermark. Bani has a Ph.D in mathematical physics and has been a teacher of physics and mathematics at the university level in both India and Sweden. For the last decade, her interests have been spirituality, healthy living and self-development. She has written a number of reviews on Amazon. Bani is a mother to two children.
ISBN-10: 155591618X
ISBN-13: 978-1555916183
Author:
Laura Pedersen
Publisher:Fulcrum
Publishingg
ISBN-10: 155591618X
ISBN-13: 978-1555916183
An
Authentic Picture of a Changing Subcontinent
Being Indian born
and bred, although I live in Europe, I am always curious to know what
is being said by Westerners about their experience of India.
Especially the India of today, an India that has long been rooted in
the past, and which now has mobile services and broadband Internet
services even in remote villages, so that the entire global community
is accessible only a few clicks away. An India straddling the
unlikely extremes of a self-reliant people, used to taking individual
responsibility for their personal lives, and a corrupt, political
elite, lacking both the will and the capacity to govern, being more
interested in lining their own pockets. I wondered if any writer
could correctly capture the essence of a deeply spiritual folk in the
process of a transition to a modern society ready to take center
stage as a global decision making entity.
In this effort,
Laura Pedersen does not disappoint. Not in the least. Despite
ridiculing many prestigious institutions, customs and people,
(Gandhi, both M.K. and Indira), she uses her considerable
journalistic skills and wit in this book to maintaining a healthy
balance between irreverence and outright disrespect, while
deciphering how and in what circumstances, ordinary Indians live,
breathe and have their being in the modern India of today.
Starting
with her childhood memories of what she had heard of India, Laura
Pedersen goes on to describe her first visit to this ancient and
distant land. She mentions the culture shock she underwent on coming
out of Delhi airport, at the variety of vehicles on the streets,
pedestrians, rickshaws, peddle-carts, oxen, goats, dogs, both three
and four legged, and, of course, auto-rickshaws, cars and buses. She
provides a panoramic view of life in India, especially urban India,
interwoven with well chosen nuggets of history when appropriate. As
far as cities go, Delhi, Agra, Bombay, Goa, Calcutta, Jaipur, Madras,
Varanasi, Kochi and Puducherry find special mention among others. The
religious landscape of the various faiths is mapped out in some
detail, as are the author’s own reflections around the cult figures
of M:K. Gandhi, J.L.Nehru, Indira Gandhi and J.Krishnamurti. Laura
also provides her own take on various issues governing Indian life,
e.g. the caste system, women empowerment, child education and female
infanticide, to name a few, comparing them on occasion, to similar
situations in the USA and Europe and displaying her considerable
scholarship and faculties of understanding and interpreting social
issues in the process. Despite being sensitive to signs of
condemnation and condescension from visitors to India from the
developed world, I could not find a single instance of the same,
while I found the originality of her interpretations on various
issues, enticingly modern and refreshing. In addition, Laura’s
facts are watertight.
There is an amazing amount of
information in this book that would be invaluable to anyone who is
planning to travel to the subcontinent. Not only outsiders, but also
native Indians could learn a thing or two, I myself learnt a few
things. On the negative side, the language is a touch too rooted in
lesser known celebrities from America, to appeal to a more
international readership.
Even so, this book is worth reading.
I warmly recommend it to all readers of bookpleasures.com
Follow Here To Purchase Planes, Trains, and Auto-Rickshaws: A Journey through Modern India