I recently read a book by Mark Tully, its called ‘India in Slow Motion’. This is the first time I have read anything by Mark Tully, the famous BBC man and I am very impressed by the narration.
The book is about ‘Poor Governance’ and talks about social/political/cultural issues around governance. To me the book also sounded like a travel book and I picked a lesson or two in detailing things from Mark and am gradually applying them in my recent travel stories at Ghumakkar . There are about 14-16 chapters with chapter talking about a issue ranging from Carpet makers in Mirzapur to Gujrat rain harvesting solutions to Cyberabad and so on.
Mark and his partner Gilly have traveled extensively to capture the story at grass roots, the real reason behind the poor governance and even though it may appear that it would be a tough and a boring read, its not. Probably because the narration is super, the detailing amazing and most importantly its a real experience book and not a gyan by someone.
What greatly impressed me was this non-judgmental style of writing. Mark comes out as a great man of tact as writing against a particular government or person could get one into a problem but he handles it with so much of tact that its sounds convincing, true but yet very much un-biased.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about India. Its also a great read from travel point of view.
I have just picked up ‘City of Djins’ by William Dalyrymple and I hope to finish that in next 2 odd months. Yeah I am a very slow reader 🙂