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by Akash Kapur

Economics

Author:

Akash Kapur
ISBN:

1594488193
ISBN13:

978-1594488191
Genre:

Money / Business
Publisher:

Riverhead Books; unknown edition (March 15, 2012)
Pages:

304 pages
Subcategory:

Economics
Language:

English
FB2 format

1418 kb
ePUB format

1186 kb
DJVU format

1472 kb
Rating:

4.6
Votes:

222
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Akash Kapur lives in and writes out of an India that few writers venture into.

Akash Kapur lives in and writes out of an India that few writers venture into. Curious, suspicious of received wisdom, and intellectually resourceful, one of the most reliable observers of the New India. -Pankaj Mishra, author of Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond.

India Becoming,’ by Akash Kapur. By GEOFFREY C. WARDMAY 25, 2012. A Portrait of Life in Modern India. 292 pp. Riverhead Books. Continue reading the main story. India and change were once virtual antonyms: old India hands returned again and again in large part because the subcontinent was so dependably different from the West. Geoffrey C. Ward’s latest book is A Disposition to Be Rich, about his larcenous forebear, Ferdinand Ward. He is at work on a book about the partition of India.

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.

This book deals with the modern period of Indian history. Elfort has been made in this book to lay NCERT History. It reveals some of the defects and weaknesses of India's medieval social, The position of state finances. OLD NCERT,Modern India (Bipan Chandra). 28 MB·57,324 Downloads. Materials for High Temperature Power Generation and Process Plant Applications. 59 MB·31,745 Downloads·New! These proceedings contain the papers covering materials for high temperature power plant. A Practical Handbook of Panchakarma Procedures.

A portrait of the incredible change and economic development of modern India, and of social and national transformation there told through individual lives Raised in India, and educated in the . Akash Kapur returned to India in 2003 to raise a family.

India Becoming - Akash Kapur. The book's subtitle, "A Portrait of Life in Modern India," is accurate. As he visits different places in his homeland Kapur constantly finds contradictions and admits that predictions are impossible

India Becoming - Akash Kapur. As he visits different places in his homeland Kapur constantly finds contradictions and admits that predictions are impossible. I could not help matching his impressions with the films "Outsourced" and "Slumdog Millionaires. Perhaps the heart of the book lies in these sentences: "For all India's modernity, the weight of tradition was still formidable.

Akash Kapur is a novelist as well as a journalist, and, as in Boo’s book, many of the strengths of India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern . At times, India Becoming reminded me of a novel Kapur has championed, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English August: An Indian Story (1988).

Akash Kapur is a novelist as well as a journalist, and, as in Boo’s book, many of the strengths of India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India are those of a good novel. Kapur’s book is a story of his return from America to India-specifically to the alternative community of Auroville, founded outside Pondicherry in 1968. Like Chatterjee’s slacker civil-servant protagonist Agastya Sen, Kapur often seems appalled by the country to which he has returned.

A New Republic Editors' and Writers' Pick 2012

A New Yorker Contributors' Pick 2012A portrait of incredible change and economic development, of social and national transformation told through individual lives

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.

Altad

Bought this book because I'm going to be traveling to India next year and I'm glad I did. Kapur's vantage point is a fascinating one, writing as a native who got highly educated in the U.S. but came back home to live and raise a family. The reader sees how dramatically India has changed through his eyes. Overall, the major point is about how technology and corporate growth are changing the country, much is gained but a great deal is lost, and the author explores this is poignant examples. He shows us what is lost in the way of human connection and tradition: Kapur introduces us to people thrilled with their new career possibilities and others devastated by the lost of farmland and livelihoods.

Cerana

This thoughtful, incisive read comes from the pen of Akash Kapur, the former columnist of the "Letter from India," which appeared regularly in the IHT. Kapur's skill is to tell the 'big' story of India's ongoing economic transformation by focusing the 'small' stories of how that transformation translates into the lives of a dozen or so of this book's subjects.

What does come across quite clearly is the author's skill at building relationships. He earns these people's trust and comes back to them again and again through the book's pages. I especially liked the stories involving Sathy, struggling with a world in which his position as the head of a leading family in a small town means less and less, and Hari, struggling with his sexuality in world pressuring him to follow the path of traditional marriage.

Kapur eventually comes to see the insidious effects of the transformation: "Development, I came to understand, was a form of creative destruction. For everyone whose life was being regenerated or rejuvenated in modern India, there was someone, as well, whose life was being destroyed."

Ultimately, it's a split decision: Kapur reveals that "I had returned from America full of enthusiasm. I celebrated what I saw as the rejuvenation of my home. Later, the enthusiasm started seeming naive, the rejuvenation something of an illusion. My optimism turned to skepticism, occasionally to despair. Now it seemed to me that I had perhaps rushed to judgment on both occasions-- that my initial, positive reaction was as hasty as my later, negative one."

If you 'touch' India at all (and anyone in IT does in one way or another), this book is a fascinating read.

Just_paw

A variable book
Detailed views of lives of people who have been affected by the Americanization of Indian culture and work ethics and opportunities

The far reaching impacts of the new culture an New opportunities

The ones who got left behind
And the some who just don't want to be a part of this new revolution

So in effect a detailed look at the changing mindset and lives of a few subjects whom the author follows and builds their life story around and in his book

It's good
But a little too detailed in terms of introspection from that subjective view

I couldn't finish the book
Maybe someone else will

monotronik

This is an ethnographic study of how the lives of common people are being impacted by contemporary economic development in India. Kapur’s writing style draws the reader into the lives of his characters as they cope with unique challenges. All the characters in this book are persons who believe in the new emerging India and are committed to making successful lives for themselves. Beneath the stories of the lives of these characters, one can sense Kapur’a own odyssey of re-settling in India after living many years in the United States.
Although all the characters are strong-willed, some are naïve, some are ill-prepared and some are very wise, their stories reveal how contemporary economic developments are creating new opportunities and new challenges for some, while affecting the lives of everyone.
The basic take away from this book is that urban India is expanding. That is, people from the nearby villages with some education and drive are moving into the cities, and concurrently, cities are encroaching into neighboring villages. Most of these people from the villages are ill-prepared to handle the modes of city life, and their cultural norms that once protected them in the village are a hindrance to successfully negotiate the challenges of city life. Further, as cities intrude into neighboring villages, village life and village modes are breaking and the solitary beauty of rural India is being displaced by environmental chaos.
A secondary underlying theme is that the market economy is not being managed by good government, the rule of ‘gundagari’ has replaced yesterday’s license raj.

Linn

Excellent look at today's India and how life has been rapidly changing as society becomes more focused on wealth and material success. I particularly enjoyed reading the varied stories from people living in both urban and rural settings (as well as those attempting to straddle both worlds) and how the changes can be considered either good or bad, depending their own particular life situation, and even depending on which particular aspect of their lives they focus on. Easy to read, and it carries you along almost in a novel-like way, as opposed to something that could have been very dry. Instead, the real-life characters, towns, villages and cities are brought to life, and you are carried along with their stories and lives.

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