Reversing his parents’ immigrant path, a young writer returns to India and discovers an old country making itself new.
Anand Giridharadas sensed something was afoot as his plane prepared to land in Bombay. An elderly passenger looked at him and said, “We’re all trying to go that way,” pointing to the rear. “You, you’re going this way?”
Giridharadas was returning to the land of his ancestors amid an unlikely economic boom. Yet he was interested less in the gold rush than in the cultural upheaval – what would happen when old traditions met new ambitions?
In India Calling, Giridharadas blends the objectivity of the outsider with the intimacy of the insider; the result is India seen at once from within and without. He introduces us to entrepreneurs, radicals, industrialists and religious seekers, but, most of all, to Indian families. Through their stories, and his own, he paints an intimate portrait of a country becoming modern while striving to remain itself.
About the author
Anand Giridharadas is a columnist for the New York Times and its global edition, the International Herald Tribune. A native of Cleveland, he worked in Bombay as a management consultant before joining the Times in 2005 as its first Bombay-based correspondent in the modern era. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
No comments:
Post a Comment