The great Indian novel
In this widely acclaimed novel, Shashi Tharoor has masterfully recast the two-thousand-year-old epic "The Mahabharata" with fictionalized - but highly recognizable - events and characters from twentieth-century Indian politics. Blending history and myth to chronicle the Indian struggle for freedom and independence, Tharoor directs his hilarious and often outrageous satire as much against Indian foibles and failings as against the bumblings of the British rulers. Despite its regional setting, this work can be enjoyed by readers unfamiliar with Indian history.
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What Hacker News says
- - The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor
- The Mirror of Beauty by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (I am reading it in Hindi/Urdu[0]. Anyone who loves historical fiction should check this out)
- Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995 (received it as a birthday gift; my first graphic novel and I am loving it)
- Shoes of the Dead by Kota Neelima
- Everybody Loves a Good Drought by P. Sainath (one of the best non-fiction works I have read)
- and some Manto, Pratchett, and John Le Carré.
I have been reading three of the books among these forever and I intend finish them. I am again starting to spend time reading that I had basically allocated to Internet and just doing nothing.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26021373-kai-chaand-the-...
- Reading this article reminds me a story from "The Great Indian Novel" by Shashi Tharoor that explains the present state of Indians -
"A man, ... a symbol, shall we say, of people of India -- is pursued by a tiger. He runs fast, but panting heart tells him he cannot run much longer. He sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he has at last escaped its snapping jaws. But no -- what's this? The branch on which he is sitting is weak, and bends dangerously. This is not all; wood-mice are gnawing away at it; before long they will eat through it and it will snap and fall. The branch sags down over a wall. Aha! Escape? Perhaps our hero can swim? But the well is dry, and there are snakes writhing and hissing on its bed. What is our hero to do? As the branch bends lower, he perceives a solitary blade of glass growing on the wall of the well.On the top of the blade of grass gleams a drop of honey. What action does our Puranic man, our quintessential Indian, take in this situation?
He bends with the branch, and licks up the honey. "
No matter how desperate the situation, Indians will always find a way to adjust, to live with it. So despite all the filth, over crowding, corruption, inefficiency, Indians have learnt how to live and enjoy.
