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.

‘A snapshot of a country in flux’ —The Age

‘A memorable debut, full of insight and diversion.’ —William Dalrymple, author of Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

‘Giridharadas is poised and wonderfully observant. He writes perfect, often humorous descriptions of everyday scenes, turning them into something remarkable.’ —Canberra Times

‘The writer’s gritty and witty pen portraits of a host of Indian characters and places makes a great read. Highly recommended’ —Sunday Herald Sun

‘Entertaining and illuminating’ —Sydney Morning Herald

‘Artful, entertaining, insightful and humble’ —Inside Story

‘Insightful’ —Courier Mail
Source: Publisher

It was an interesting read where the author tries to contrast the old India of his parent's generation with the new emerging India through a collection of short stories about people from different backgrounds who are making this change possible. I however do have some issues with the author's writing style. It almost seemed that he was trying to imitate someone but quite poorly.

It was an interesting read where the author tries to contrast the old India of his parent's generation with the new emerging India through a collection of short stories about people from different backgrounds who are making this change possible. I however do have some issues with the author's writing style. It almost seemed that he was trying to imitate someone but quite poorly.

Really enjoyed this book. Referring to an Indian girl who had moved to England to escape the confines of her Indian family he writes: 'In England...she not only found a boyfriend and not only moved in with him, but also managed to find one who was a Pakistani Muslim. Her parents did not know, and it was assumed they would go into simultaneous cardiac arrest if they ever found out' Writing about attending a party to celebrate a visit home by the above mentioned girl: 'The men seemed more than shy; they appeared to be entirely incapable of contemplating what it would involve
to dance with a woman who was not their mother. It seemed likely that they would follow the traditional pattern of having no contact with a woman until the day when they would gain the legal right to force themselves on one. As one often observed at large gatherings of Indian males, they tended to make lusty eyes at one another instead. A man named Hemant, not long after being introduced to me for the first time, dragged me across the room and into the male dancing circle. He stood before me and began to pump his hips and thrust his hands into the air, with every expectation that I do the same, which very, very tepidly, I did'
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(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Regular readers know that in the last several years, I've been giving myself a crash course of sorts all about the regions we in the West refer to as the Middle East and Southeast Asia, mostly because these areas are becoming more and more important by the day in world affairs, and like most Americans I don't know the least little freaking thing about any of them; but unfortunately, I've learned that most of the contemporary books coming out these days that purport to teach us Westerners more about these regions usually fail at one extreme or another, being either overly simplistic book-length Wikipedia entries that teach nothing about what it's like to actually live there right now, or glorified doctoral theses with a mainstream-friendly cover slapped on the front, full of obscure political theories and lots of demographic data but failing to give the reader a good overall look at the area. But not so with India Calling, an almost perfect balance of these elements by Anand Giridharadas, accomplished mostly by the circumstances of him being a youngish intellectual Indian-American who wished and then got a long-term job with the New York Times to cover the subcontinent, moving there permanently after an American childhood filled with old stories and frequent vacations, which allows him not only to be an outsider and insider at once, but also to simultaneously understand the culture and history behind all the 21st century "quiet revolutions" going on there right now and still be surprised and somewhat awestruck by it all as well.

And of course, it helps quite a bit that Giridharadas's job as a journalist specifically sends him into a whole variety of fascinating situations on a regular basis, where he uses his keen intellect to not only report on what he sees but interpret to Americans why it's so important; and so from his time spent with a former "untouchable" who has entrepreneurially transformed himself into a laptop-owning middle-class motivational speaker, to a day at a rural and largely improvised "family court" system, to his talk with one of the richest and most powerful media moguls in the country, Giridharadas brings a mesmerizing sense of place and society to each of the strange little things he examines, giving us perhaps the best overall "insider's" view of Indian life in the 21st century that English speakers have now seen. A huge recommendation whether or not you're specifically interested in India itself, precisely because you will be after finishing no matter what your attitude was before, India Calling absolutely makes me want to now seek out Giridharadas's newspaper columns on a more timely basis, in the same kind of exhilarated way that I felt about Malcolm Gladwell after reading The Tipping Point.

Out of 10: 9.4 ( )