India: Tradition Warring with Innovation

India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking By Giridharadas, Anand 2011-01 - Times Books 9780805091779 Check the Library Reversing his parents' immigrant path, a young American-born writer returns to India and discovers an old country making itself new. Giridharadas brings to life the people and the dilemmas of India today. …More

I have an acquaintance with a few people born in India, and I've spoken to my share of call center reps based there - but that was the extent of my knowledge of present-day India until I read a fascinating book recently, India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking.

The author, Anand Giridharadas, is a young writer whose parents immigrated to America in the 70s. Like many American children of immigrants, he was less interested in appreciating the culture of his parents' homeland than he was in assimilating to life in suburbia. A journalism project after college that took him to live in India for a year was the beginning of an eye-opening experience in the life of a country on the verge of dramatic change for everyone there - from the very rich to the very poor.

Enlarge your mind and spirit with a little book vacation to an exotic locale undergoing radical cultural changes.