Comments on: Ten Best Books on India?

By: Sagar

Sagar — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:19:02 +0000

This is avery useful list compiled by so many contributors. Most of the relevant books have already been covered.
Here are my my recommendations, without any ranking:

1. “We are like that Only” by Rama Bijapurkar (Penguin) – on marketing in today’s India
2. “The Indians” by Sudhir & Katharina Kakar (Penguin) – social psychology
3. “Branding India-An Incredible Story” by Amitabh Kant (Collins Business) – a case study on “Incredible India” campaign
4. “Handmade in India” by Aditi & MP Ranjan (Cohands & Mapin) – an encyclopaedic tome on India’s craft tradition
5. “The Earthen Drum” by Pupul Jayakar on India’s crafts
6. “Chasing the monsoon: A modern pilgrimage through India” by Alexander Frater
7.”Butter chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in small town India” (Travelogue) by Pankaj Mishra
8. “Temptations of the West: How to be modern in India, Pakistan….” (Travelogue) By Pankaj Mishra

My all time favorite: “Autobiography of an Unknown Indian” by Nirad C. Chaudhuri

By: Priya

Priya — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:00:49 +0000

One of the best collection of novels on India is the Gandhi Quartet by a much celebrated but not too well known writer, Chamana Nahal. These include:

1) Azadi (Freedom). New Delhi, Arnold-Heinemann, and Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1975; London, Deutsch, 1977.

2)The Crown and the Loincloth. New Delhi, Vikas, 1981.

3)The Salt of Life. New Delhi, Allied, 1990.

4)The Triumph of the Tricolour. New Delhi, Allied, 1993.

The first one, which chronologically comes at the end, was published first and received the highest literary award in India–the Sahitya Akademi award in 1975. It’s a wonderful moving account of a Hindu family that moved to India just at partition. The novel is dispassionate and an easy read while being extremely poetic in prose. The other novels, that are similarly well narrated and presented, go back and trace the freedom movement with special reference to the role of Gandhi.

Nahal is an absolutely wonderful writer but sadly ignored. It’s about time we brought him out! Nahal lives in New Delhi, India

By: Priya

Priya — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:46:04 +0000

anyone for – seven sacred rivers by bill aitken?

By: larissa

larissa — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:32:43 +0000

V. S. Naipaul’s Books on India on India (India-an area of darkness, India a Million Mutinies)are confront the grim realities of India, no romanticizing…
Will Durant A Case for India (banned at one time by the British)
Count Keyserling The travel Diary of a Philosopher (has a part on India as well as China, Japan and US)
Kitab-e-Yamini –a shocking tale of how Turks came into India
Francois Bernier–Travels in the Mogul Court–eyewitness account of Frenchman shows how the court lead to the poverty of India–no schools, no Universities, high taxation of peasants just built palaces for themselves
Andre Wink–exposes the truth about Islam in India without holding an ideological bias
Arun Shourie Eminent Historians
Al Beruni’s India–displays Muslim bias but you can learn a lot from his book as he was a great scholar
Someone mentioned“Discovery of India” by Jawaharlal nehru–I find this book very superficial–part of Nehru’s problem–one feels as if the does not understand the real India…
Someone mentioned Max Meuller India what it can teach us–good book–It is a pleasure to read Meuller who despite his biases understands India so much more than those writing in modern times going by the name of “Indologosts”. A great man’s work even his mistakes and biases are a pleasure to read…
Books by Tagore–although much is lost in Engligh translation

Kalhan–History of Kashmir–first Indian historian on India. Tanslated by Aurel Stein

Also the works of Aurel Stein are great–he was the one who lost several toes on account of frostbite to show who Buddhism entered the Middle Kingdom…and that the first known printed book was the Diamond Sutra…Not many scholars like this these days with this kind of dedication

By: larissa

larissa — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:07:21 +0000

Andre Wink three volumes on Indian history is also very good.

By: larissa

larissa — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:49:12 +0000

The Argumentative Indian – Amartya Sen

A very dissappointing and superficial book on India–Sen should stick to his specialty which is Economics.

By: larissa

larissa — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:47:20 +0000

I recommend Count Keyseling’s “The travel diary of a philosopher”–he has written about India of the 1920′s. He has some prejudices but since people did not have to be PC back then like now, his book is full of honest insights as well–it is the view of India of a Prussian Count. I highly recommend this book in two volumes–he also writes of America, China and Japan apart from India….Very insightful observations of India, America, China and Japan…

By: Nitin

Nitin — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:50:25 +0000

Am reading Ramachandra Guha’s ‘INDIA AFTER GANDHI’. It’s an epic. It is the greatest book on India,ever. It is engaging and very very informative. I have been trying to read all of Ram Guha’s articles and also plan to buy his other books.

By: Neeraj

Neeraj — Sun, 10 May 2009 06:52:01 +0000

Well, Ramayana and Mahabharata (in English by C. Rajagopalachari) are not just books on India, but define India and underlies everything about India and its people.

By: nm

nm — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:24:19 +0000

Abehera,

I read Maximum City and really liked it.

Read the World is Flat, but didn’t like that. I think Friedman is overrated and the book was nothing more than a collection of snippets that you could get from reading the NYT’s international section. Friedman seems to be fascinated by India, but I don’t think he really understands the country.

I just finished reading Nandan Nilekani’s book “Imagining India”, which to my surprise was not that good. I thought I’d learn a lot about the outsourcing industry from reading it, but it’s really a book about India’s modern political history. I guess I was hoping for an in-depth biography on Nilekani’s business experiences in India, but the book doesn’t have much of that.

So,now, I’m going to watch the documentary “Office Tigers”, which is about an american setting up an outsourcing center in Pune.

I just finished watching the documentary, “Born into Brothels” about children growing up in Sonagachi’s red light district. That’s one of the best documentaries I’ve ever watched and If you know of other good documentaries on India, please let me know.