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A Portrait of Life in Modern India
Riverhead
March 2012
On Sale: March 15, 2012
304 pages
ISBN: 1594488193
EAN: 9781594488191
Kindle: B005GSZHW2
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
A portrait of incredible change and economic development, of
social and national transformation told through individual lives The son of an Indian father and an American mother, Akash
Kapur spent his formative years in India and his early
adulthood in the United States. In 2003, he returned to his
birth country for good, eager to be part of its exciting
growth and modernization. What he found was a nation even
more transformed than he had imagined, where the changes
were fundamentally altering Indian society, for better and
sometimes for worse. To further understand these changes, he sought out the
Indians experiencing them firsthand. The result is a rich
tapestry of lives being altered by economic development, and
a fascinating insider's look at many of the most important
forces shaping our world today. Much has been written about
the rise of Asia and a rebalancing of the global economy,
but rarely does one encounter these big stories with the
level of nuance and detail that Kapur gives us in India
Becoming. Among the characters we meet are a broker of cows who must
adapt his trade to a modernizing economy; a female call
center employee whose relatives worry about her values in
the city; a feudal landowner who must accept that he will
not pass his way of life down to his children; and a career
woman who wishes she could "outsource" having a baby. Through these stories and many others, Kapur provides a
fuller understanding of the complexity and often
contradictory nature of modern India. India Becoming is
particularly noteworthy for its emphasis on rural India-a
region often neglected in writing about the country, though
70 percent of the population still lives there. In scenes
reminiscent of R. K. Narayan's classic works on the Indian
countryside, Kapur builds intimate portraits of farmers,
fishermen, and entire villages whose ancient ways of life
are crumbling, giving way to an uncertain future that is at
once frightening and full of promise. Kapur himself grew up
in rural India; his descriptions of change and modernization
are infused with a profound-at times deeply poignant-
firsthand understanding of the loss that must accompany all
development and progress. India Becoming is essential reading for anyone interested in
our changing world and the newly emerging global order. It
is a riveting narrative that puts the personal into a broad,
relevant and revelational context.
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