India – From Midnight to the Millenium…

Started on the book India – From Midnight to the Millenium a few days back. Tharoor has a voluminous English vocabulary; gets daunting at times. Also, the multiple number of subordinate clauses each sentence seems to contain… No one seems to write like R K Narayan or Ruskin Bond anymore….:-(

While reading ‘The Great Indian Novel’, I didn’t realise the extent of verbosity in Tharoor’s works, though. My guess is, I must have raced through that book too… Sigh!

In one of the earlier chapters in the book, Tharoor explains his Keralite background. He explores his childhood spent in B’bay where he attended Campion School with Rishi Kapoor as his classmate. A bit of trivia; it was Rishi Kapoor who prompted Tharoor to investigate what caste he belonged to and if he was a Brahmin. He describes regular summer vacations to Palakkad(familiar except the Palakkad connection!), the feudal system in Kerala which ended in his childhood, the gradual acceptance of his friend who happened to be a Pariah in his ancestral home .

‘So Kerala embodies the “Malayali miracle”: a state that has practiced openness and tolerance from time immemorial; that has made religious and ethnic diversity a part of its daily life rather than a source of division; that has overcome caste discrimination and class oppression through education, land reforms, and political democracy; that has honored its women and enabled them to lead productive, fulfilling, and empowered lives.’