Like Britain during the 19th century Industrial Revolution, Indian society is going through wrenching changes as the country rapidly industrializes and people migrate from the rural areas to the cities in search of new employment opportunities. The only real difference is that the transformation taking place in India is happening on a much more massive scale involving tens, if not hundreds of millions of people, and at a much faster rate. Continue reading The White Tiger
Sharp blades thrusting, spear blades killing
As Aethelred Lord of Slaughter slaughtered thousands
Swelling the river with blood, sword-fed river
The Burning Land, the fifth in Bernard Cornwell’s series of novels about Alfred the Great’s struggle to defend the kingdom of Wessex against the marauding Danish armies, may not have the poetic cadences of an early English epic except for a few lines like these quoted above. But it does feature a gripping and gritty story as the book’s fictional hero the pagan Uhtred of Bebbanburg reluctantly finds himself thrown into war once again on behalf of his devout but manipulative king. Continue reading The Burning Land
I have to say I was more than a little skeptical when I saw critics hailing Paolo Bacigalupi as a worthy successor to William Gibson. But it only took a few pages of The Windup Girl for me to realize that my doubts were unfounded as I was hurled into a chillingly realistic new world of chronic food and energy shortages, rampant plagues and environmental disasters, and an evil cartel of Midwestern seed companies brutally imposing their biotech IP monopoly throughout the globe. Continue reading The Windup Girl
In Nine Lives, William Dalrymple explores the impact that India’s rapid modernization has had on the country’s multi-faceted spiritual life through “a collection of non-fiction short stories”, with each life “intended to act as a keyhole onto the way that each specific religious vocation has been caught and transformed in the vortex of India’s metamorphosis during this rapid period of transition.” Continue reading Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India
“Where does India go from here?” This is the question that Nandan Nilekani, one of the key players behind the tremendous growth of India’s BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) industry, addresses in Imagining India: Ideas for a New Century. Continue reading Imagining India
A discontented middle-aged writer has a passionate affair with an attractive woman he meets at the Venice Art Festival. A discontented middle-aged writer goes to Varanasi to write a travel piece and surrenders to the mystical power of the city. Continue reading Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
In her first novel, Who Moved My BlackBerry?, the FT’s popular management columnist Lucy Kellaway did a brilliant job of satirizing the absurdities of modern-day corporate life with her hilarious account of Martin Lukes’ frantic attempts to save his family and career. No management cliché is left unturned as Lukes spews out his “learnings” in a raging torrent of emails and messages laced with new age gibberish. Continue reading In Office Hours
Writing a second novel is a tough enough challenge, but how do you approach your twentieth one – especially if it is part of the same series? Continue reading Nemesis
As China’s economic might continues to rise, it’s important that we all gain a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural forces that are driving the rapid growth of the country. Continue reading China’s Cosmopolitan Empire
Will this be the Asian Century as many pundits have predicted? Not according to George Friedman in his latest book The Next 100 Years. Continue reading The Next 100 Years