Butter Chicken in Ludhiana by Pankaj Mishra

In the name of ALLAH, Most High, Most Merciful, Most Knowledgeable, Most Forgiving

Butter Chicken in Ludhiana by Pankaj Mishra

Written with sarcasm, satire and surprise, Butter Chicken is a wonderful book about one of the world’s largest and most influential countries experiencing transition. India, land of the poor and the pragmatist. It has that endearing charm to it that all Indian written books have, soul. India, a country that takes an especially far-reaching intellect to describe its perplexity, is a portrait here of a nation finding their aspirations, wanting the wider arc of people to comprehend that they are now a force to be reckoned with.

Despite the dirt and the debris, Subhannallah, the immorality and open immodesty are something of a genuine surprise. Through the spanning years, with all the tales my ancestors would imprint into their future generations, they had painted India as the country with a sturdy sense of bashfulness. They still think it’s like that, though I fail to regard it as true after all the inexplicable nonsense they do there.

Read it when going to India, or when going anywhere, each chapter is a different story in a diverse city, something one could put down at length and resume another time as if he’d never stopped.

Book Reviewers

I always thought book reviewers were losers. I mean, you're taking another person, oh, just not another human, but an author, and giving his life's work a cursory glance and then proclaiming your snobbish opinion that will either way change his life. How do you think the writer must feel? He must be wary of picking up a newspaper. On top of that, the public listen to this commentator and thus form their judgments. The only way an artist can win the war against the critic, is to do something so ginormously extraordinary, that the critic will be totally and absolutely overawed.

Thus said, books, after arriving in book stores, are not sold by themselves. Their sold, and I mean bestseller multi million selling, when the conclusions of the Observer, the New York Times, or the Sunday Independent appears majestically on their front and back covers. I admit to choosing books just because of these names. It as if the final and ultimate judgment has been recorded. As if the words of these small persons, who will probably never write a book in their lives and realise the significance of a published story, are almost blessed.

Well, since I do not have the patience, the talent, nor the story, I like reviewing books. It gives me a sense of almost self worth. I hope you'll enjoy my humble efforts.

Oh the irony of it all...

Friday

It is as cold as the moon's glacial face. So cold, it warrants that we do no work today, just sit, huddled, in layers of cloth and wool. To drink mugs of boiling lava like liquid, so that it burns the throat and causes fire in the belly. But today is Friday, Al-Jum'a, a day of blessings and peace, a day of ease. A day of spiritual warmth. Wrap up in your remembrance of the Almighty.

Have a great day.

A Beautiful Beginning...