Snakes and Ladders
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
India is a land of contrasts. It is the world's most populous democracy, but it still upholds the caste system. It is a burgeoning economic superpower, but one of the poorest nations on earth. It is the home of the world's biggest movie industry after Hollywood, as well as to the world's oldest religions. It is an ancient civilization celebrating fifty years as a modern nation. Now, as never before, the world wants to know what contemporary India is all about.
As she has proved in three previous books--her wry take on the marketing of the mystic East in Karma Cola; the rich historical saga of Raj; and the beguiling tales of A River Sutra--there is no better guide to India's multihued mosaic than Gita Mehta. She knows India in all its rich detail--its folkways and history, its culture and politics, its ancient traditions and current concerns. In Snakes and Ladders, she gives a loving but unflinching assessment of India today, in an account that is entertaining, informative, and wholly personal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mehta writes of India as one of a new generation, born the day in 1947 when it became independent and five years old when Gandhi was assassinated. Her view of her country's recent past is filtered through her own experiences as a well-connected, Oxford-educated writer (A River Sutra), reporter and lecturer. This series of engrossing sketches, some of which have been previously published in U.S. and British magazines, describes a country that is not one but several civilizations in different states of development, a subcontinent rather than a single state, with a multitude of cultures, religions, languages, races and customs, where "most Indians view other Indians as foreigners." Its lack of a cohesive identity has frustrated rulers, past and present, in their efforts to "centralize a land that has no center but is only a field of experience." Yet the democratic urge brings the disparate elements to vote in numbers that might shame more cohesive states: "half a billion ballot... in 17 different languages, each with individual scripts." Mehta's reports range across rampant political corruption, chaotic rule, fashionable dinners, discussions of the country's ancient cultures and her own encounters with poets and filmmakers. These wide-ranging pieces, suffused with outrage, pride, love and humor, have the immediacy of sharp personal reactions and the distance of a critical eye. First serial to Vogue; author tour.
