Capturing the spirit of the age
Reviewed by Aradhika Sharma

India Rising: Tales from Changing Nation
By Oliver Balch. Faber and Faber. Pages 330. UK 4.99

India, as Indians articulate it. Oliver Balch, in his book, has interviewed a myriad people and allowed Indians the voice to tell it like it is, without trying to make them speak in his voice or to try and mould the interviewees to justify what he believes is true. Thus, there are several voices speaking up, many names that are familiar to us as well as men and women on the road, in call centers, on university campuses, in offices, in counseling offices — all communicating their truths; talking about what is the reality for them. Together, they form not a clamour, but a picture of what India is all about. Like a jigsaw puzzle coming together, Balch puts together the pieces and comes up with his conclusion: India Rising.

In his introduction, Balch says, "My overarching goal is to gain a flavour of this place, New India." The way he chooses to do it is to talk to people and sketch them out for the reader- nuances, lilts and intonations all in place. In an interview, he said that for every one of the people he chose to write about, there were ten people he spoke to but did not include. The idea was to let people present as varied and as representative a picture as possible, without the book getting ungainly and scattered.

The author, Oliver Balch is a freelance writer and journalist based in London, specialising in business and world affairs. His first book, Viva South America! Journey Through a Restless Continent was shortlisted for Travel Book of the Year at the Travel Press Awards. For the past 15 years, Balch has been visiting India, his first impressions being a land of "mahoots and mystics". However, with his subsequent visits, came the feeling that there has been a "shift in people’s attitudes, and a new-found confidence too….is this the "New India" of which writers and commentators are beginning to speak?"

In order to get into the veins of India, Balch travelled the length and breadth of the country. He got into the lifeblood of India and therefore the book is not the usual account of India seen through the eyes of foreigners but in fact presents a fair picture of the social, cultural and economic changes. There is a feeling of the here and the now. India is rising but there are fears that come with growth- of the stumble and the fall that are sure to come in the way of progression. Yet there is confidence and enterprise and entrepreneurship.

In addition, there are changing attitudes towards the social mores, thanks to the World Wide Web, communications and Bollywood that has created aspirations of modernity in a culture that’s been rooted in tradition. Thus, there’s a breaking away from the limits imposed by convention and youngsters are increasingly exploring love and relationships, straining against the conservative parameters. Here too, there’s a struggle; a tussle between the lot that clings to and promotes narrow nationalism and outdated ideas of morality and the lot that wants to move on: fast!

All this and more comes through the individual voices that Balch allows to speak in the pages of India Rising.

Balch writes, "If the country is indeed changing, however, then perhaps New India is as good a name as any. A transitory place, not necessarily divorced from the Old, yet not wedded to it either.

Nor need the term be entirely material. Could it not point to a change in spirit, a shift in perception?"

Could it not, indeed?

HOME