I
It is not often that a volume of essays gives so much pleasure. I picked it up with scepticism but put it down with delight.
The essays present insights that educate and challenge. We learn, for example, of the role that weeds play in the rural economy, providing nutrition and livelihoods. There is a witty expose of Bangla’s failure to achieve the status of Hindi. Modern Indian art gets its comeuppance, as does Indian television. The values and fantasies of popular cinema, the erosion of India’s non-English high culture, the influence and limitations of the media, the changing mores of the Indian family and the hypocrisies of the rich are brilliantly observed.
The editor and all the contributors are to be congratulated for a volume that maintains such a civilised tone and looks at us Indians with unflinching honesty and the irreverence that we so richly deserve.