The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India - Siddartha Deb

To be sure, India is one of the easiest places in the world to see the dichotomy of society into rich and poor.
This book wanders around this dichotomy in a pondering and not so orderly fashion. Aside from pointing out the differences, I could not find much of a point to this book.

That is not to say it isn't interesting. Deb introduces you to charaters so colorful, they sound like fiction. They are probably not the average people a westerner would run into, which makes them fascinating to me.

Verdict: Read it - good time pass.

Dreaming in Hindi - Katherine Russell Rich

This book appealed to me due to my seemingly never ending quest to speak passable Hindi. Admittedly, I haven't been all that disciplined.

Rich goes to India on a midlife quest to master Hindi. She does, by the end of the book, reach passable Hindi. I was rather confused by this book as she seems to wander around with stories that don't seem to have much to do with her quest for the language. She also seems apathetic about the whole thing by the end of the book and admits in the post script to not using it often again, leaving me to wonder what the point of her trip was all together. Rich doesn't have any profound revelations (that she shares) about her time in India. What she does share in depth is much of the etymology of learning Hindi and how language experts view acquiring a new language.

Verdict: Meh. It was an interesting read, but don't look for any humorous anecdotes or revelations about life in India. Learning any new language is challenging - with or without expert opinions.

Sold - Patricia McCormick

Sold is the story of a 13 year old Nepali girl named Lakshmi. The narrative opens with a description of life in her villiage, how difficult it is for her family to feed everyone, and the male worship that is an overwhelming force in her part of the world. Lakshmi's stepfather is worshiped to the point where even though he openly talks of selling her and bets away all his money, and her mother still tells her to be thankful that they have a man looking after them.

Lakshmi feels the pressure to help earn money for her family and agrees to go and work. Her stepfather instead sells her to a trafficker without telling her and she ends up in an unnamed city in a brothel. Her transition from care free child to exploited woman is short and brutal. It is made clear that even those who escape their "debt" to the madam and are allowed to leave will never be welcomed back by their family and diseases are neither avoided nor rare.

At the end of the book, Lakshmi is rescued from the brothel by a man from an NGO. It leaves you feeling both glad she got out, and ashamed that so many will not.

Verdict: Read it. Sexual slavery and trafficking is a problem that spans the whole world and needs the attention of everyone.

Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars - Sonia Faleiro

In this book, Sonia Faleiro goes in search of information on the underworld of Mumbai Dance Bars and the girls that dance in them. She comes across some very colorful, yet tragic personalities.

Far from respectable, yet not as disregarded as prostitutes, dance bar girls often walk a very fine "sugar daddy" line that is never stable nor secure and very easily slides into prostitution. Echoing some of the other less fortunate parts of different societies, getting a glimpse into the mentality of people who didn't come from money and find themselves with some of it is fascinating. There is no thought to saving, no thought to making smart decisions, should the girl have the ability to. Most girls got into the dance business from sexual abuse at home/in their village and strike out looking for a better life and more work. What she walks into is a seedy, crime infested, insecure life that she finds herself resigned to. It's tragic and fascinating at the same time.

Verdict: Read it if you have a soft spot for people forced to do their best in bad situations, especially if you have a tender for women doing the best they can while being utterly exploited. 

Do You Suppose it's the East Wind - Muhammad Umar Memon

This book is a collection of stories that started in Urdu - a language that is a mix of Hindi and Arabic and used by the Muslim world across India. Urdu has it's own colloquialisms and culture that I was fascinated to explore.

I don't know if I walked away with an increased understanding of either one, but it was still an interesting collection of stories.

Verdict: Read it.

Stranger to History - Aatish Taseer

Aatish Taseer takes the reader on an abridged tour of the middle east in an effort to understand the religion and culture of his estranged father. Taseer has an interesting viewpoint in that his mother grew up in a Sikh family. A man searching not only for the identity and support of his father, but also for a culture in a house that has always had two.

Of course it didn't really bring him closer to his Muslim Pakistani father even if it did help him understand himself, which is generally how these things go.

That being said, it's an interesting view into the different subtypes of Islam. I think it may interest a Muslim more than non Muslim, but it's still interesting to read.


Verdict: Read it.

If it's Not Forever It's Not Love - Durjoy Datta

I couldn't remember ordering this (I'm not a huge fan of sap), but it came, so I read it anyhow. For a sappy story, it was a good one.

The plot line starts after a bomb blast. A young guy finds a torched diary. Thinking that someone's family may want to know what happened to the victim, he and his girlfriend go on a round about journey of India to find them. In the end, there are some great twists to the plot, and even a great sense of how love gets over many, many things.

Verdict: Read it, even if you don't like sap.

I Accuse - Jarnail Singh

Moving the intolerance train right along, I accuse is about the anti-Sikh violence that occurred upon Indira Gandhi's death by her Sikh body guard.

This book underlines all that is uncontrolled and savage about India. The author outlines many stories of when people went to the police for protection from the mob, they were chased off and told they did not warrant protection. A chilling thought.

Once again, people who had been part of communities for generations were singled out for brutalities that most of us cannot imagine.

I'm going to file this under one of the books that needs to be read so that people can work to avoid having it happen again. I find it especially disturbing when people turn on their own countrymen.

Verdict: Not an easy read from an atrocities point of view, but should not be forgotten.

The Intolerant Indian - Gautam Adhikari

As per my penchant for learning about Indian culture, I was curious about the author's premise.

Gautam Adhikari explores some of the history that has resulted in many Indians becoming xenophobic and overly concerned with religion in order to exclude others. The author explores fanaticism without resorting to the usual suspects or blaming one party over the other.

He also explores how religion has, and continues to shape politics. There is an idea floating around that Indians are extremely tolerant because India hosts a society that is comprised of multiple types of people with different religions, creeds, and outlooks. Unfortunately, he solidly debunks this myth.

Verdict: I wouldn't recommend this for someone who hasn't had any real time exposure to life in India. It's a hot confusing mess to understand, even for people who have had exposure. If you are interested/have had exposure, it's a very interesting read on India's view on itself and in relation to the world. The level of intolerance will shock and possibly sicken you. 

100 Great Modern Lives - John Canning

So I like reading about interesting and or inspiring people. This book seemed to offer me lots of interesting people to read on.

The modern part of this is a little misleading - there are some people who lived quite some time ago. I suppose John Canning was going for modern era - my mistake.

I really enjoyed this week as even well known characters (think Thomas Edison) came even more alive for me as the author delved into personal lives as well as societal contributions. There were musicians, inventors, artists, etc.

The only downside was that this is a THICK book, it will take you a while to read if you find it in the library and have other things going on in life.

Verdict: Read it. Great people tend to inspire others to improve their lives and expand their minds.

Becky

Blood Brothers - MJ Akbar

I'm not quite sure why I picked up this book, but I'm glad I did. I tend to favor family saga stories that span for a few generations and cover the culture of different countries. This is one such book.

Blood Brothers focuses on a Hindu orphan who wanders into a small village outside of Calcutta and is taken in by a Muslim family that owns a tea stall. The boy eventually converts and builds his own successful business and home in the village. His own children's lives and current events are included.

The time period for this book is during the Partition of India and Pakistan, which was a notoriously difficult time for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Neighbors that had always lived side by side with respect found themselves swept up in waves of suspicion, bigotry, and violence.

It serves as a very sad reminder of how changing tides of opinion can sway even the longest acquaintances.

This book is definitely worth the time. You'll learn about Bangladesh and some of the hatred that haunts different communities to this day.

Verdict: Read it!