aniket_shevade's review
4.0
Naipaul takes us through his journey of India with a unique lens of a Trinidad Indian trying to explore a mysterious part of Indianness he inherited. The whole encounter is confusing, he is sometimes too Foreign to connect with Indians and too Indian to not to find pride in some Indian features. He is amazed, alienated, defeated, challenged, disgusted, confused by this 1960s journey of India.
As an Indian, reading this made me realise my own myopia in understanding India, how I have overlooked and ignored certain troubling aspect of our culture. This was an enjoyable read nonetheless.
As an Indian, reading this made me realise my own myopia in understanding India, how I have overlooked and ignored certain troubling aspect of our culture. This was an enjoyable read nonetheless.
manugummi's review
2.0
“It is possible to find the India that appears not to have changed since Mogul times but has, profoundly; it is until, sometimes Ektha dismay, sometimes with impatience, one realized that complete communication is not possible, that a gift of Indian retreat. Both the negative and positive principles have been diluted; one balanced the other. The penetration was not complete; the attempt at conversion was abandoned. India’s strength, her ability to endure, came from the negative principle, her unexamined sense of continuity. It is a principle which, once diluted, Lowe’s its virtue. In the concept of Indianness the sense of continuity was bound to be lost. The creative urge failed. Instead of continuity we have the static. It is there in the ‘ancient culture’ architecture; it is there in the much bewailed loss of drive, which is psychological more than politics and economic. It is there in the political gossip of Bunty. It is there in the dead horses and immobile chariot of the Kurukshetra temple. Shiva has ceased to dance.”
bhabanism's review against another edition
5.0
He wrote it in 60s but everything he wrote we are discussing even today, he spotted stuff long before we did. He is extremely critical of us but it's not due to hatred like naxals but due to his hopelessness, he deeply wanted India fixed. He sees things, as skilled as a master photographer, his perspective of India from an outsider (or a homeless as he felt by his end of the tour) who has a fantasy of India but which lead to a culture shock instead, his deep sadness at state of India, the gloom, gloom not for just the wretchedness but Indians negation of it, is evident in this narration. It's a must read for we frog in the well type people.
shobhitshubhankar's review against another edition
4.0
This is an extraordinary dissection of India, and Indian society. Naipaul laments throughout as to how the Indians as a people are incapable of truly looking at themselves and society, as it exists in the here and now. And that is exactly what he masterfully succeeds at doing. He seems to possess an uncanny ability to dive deep into the collective impulses of a complex society, and emerge with insights that speak directly, forcefully.
Reading the book also made me realize exactly how little has changed over the past five decades since Naipaul first journeyed in India. Almost every modern refrain seems to have been, as it were, carried down unaltered from an earlier age. Even in the early 1960s, Naipaul talks about the growing irrelevance of Gandhi, the creation of a distance from the masses through his deification. Ordinary corruption is commonplace, as is a general disdain for public hygiene.
It is tragic that when the book was published, it was seen to portray India in an unsavory light, and therefore quickly banned. We, who could not learn to look at ourselves, flinched when we were shown a mirror.
Reading the book also made me realize exactly how little has changed over the past five decades since Naipaul first journeyed in India. Almost every modern refrain seems to have been, as it were, carried down unaltered from an earlier age. Even in the early 1960s, Naipaul talks about the growing irrelevance of Gandhi, the creation of a distance from the masses through his deification. Ordinary corruption is commonplace, as is a general disdain for public hygiene.
It is tragic that when the book was published, it was seen to portray India in an unsavory light, and therefore quickly banned. We, who could not learn to look at ourselves, flinched when we were shown a mirror.
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