Thursday, January 20, 2011

‘It’s great to be alive in India now’

Going by its title, Patrick French’s new book India: A Portrait seems to aim for the impossible. To present a homogenous portrait of India in less than 400 pages would mean either glossing over its innumerable complexities and social contradictions, or leaving the picture incomplete. French

chooses a different route. His ‘portrait’ is more of a multi-hued mosaic — an ensemble of individual stories and personal narratives that bring out a range of different Indias — and the result is a book at once piercing and insightful.

 

“I was trying to span a huge, overwhelming subject in a way that would touch the hearts of everybody,” says French. 

more at hindustantimes 

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