Boom Goes Bust

A western quickie on the India story traipses through the Kumbh Mela, Kashmir and everything in between, but is little more than a cheap tourist companiond

India Booms: The Breathtaking Development and Influence of Modern India
John Farndon,
Virgin books, 6 pounds

I don8217;t know much about John Farndon the book has nothing about the author. But I know he writes plays and lyrics and is also a composer based in London. Other than that, he is a prolific writer of information books, like 1,000 or 100 facts you should know about something or the other. The human body, rocks and minerals, earth and space, bugs and snakes, volcanoes, oil, plants, electricity, oceans and rivers, bird flu, GM food and assorted children8217;s encyclopedias having been done, he has turned his attention to specific countries. Thus, there was a book on Iran in 2006 and China Rises: How China8217;s Astonishing Growth Will Change the World on September 6. The date is important, because if you have China, you can8217;t ignore India. The other two BRIC countries, Brazil and Russia, don8217;t matter yet. Perhaps such books will follow in 2008. For the moment, this is the India companion to the China story and this book was also published on September 6. It is a quickie and is consciously projected as a low-priced companion to a travel guide, with cheap paper and design. That doesn8217;t excuse the typos though. The book isn8217;t littered with them, but there are about a dozen.

Farndon is no India expert and has based a lot of his stuff on Edward Luce, Sunil Khilnani, Vandana Shiva, David Smith, Mark Tully and Pavan Varma, plus assorted websites. About Luce, the book states, 8220;If you read one other book on India, make it this one.8221; Luce8217;s book is good, but Farndon is hardly in the same league as the others. Tall claims apart, India Booms is really in the 1,000-facts genre, though the facts are clustered under 10 chapters on India8217;s booming economy, the government of India, religious India, India and Pakistan, India and the USA, village India, metro India, young India, cutting-edge India and India faces the future. There is also an introduction and an annexed background chapter that sets out the main periods in a chronological sequence. This isn8217;t A.L. Basham writing. India has now attracted global interest. India sells. So do books on India. Why should we grudge someone the opportunity of making some money out of enhanced interest centred on India? The author only intends to produce a book you can flip through in 30 minutes.

Given that, only three questions need be asked. First, are topics included of general interest to prospective foreign travellers? Second, is the text well written? Third, are there gross inaccuracies? A writer of 300-odd books should write well. And the boxed profiles include Ratan Tata, L.K. Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Amartya Sen, Mukesh Ambani, Sania Mirza and N.R. Narayana Murthy, with additional boxes on items like Jugaad, corruption, the RSS, the Hindu horse, the two-party system, Kumbh Mela, Maharashtra riots, the Kashmir bus, Kargil, Bollywood, Mumbai8217;s dabbawallahs and Amby valley thrown in. The only item missing is cricket. Therefore, the selection in the book is not only topical, but is also fairly interesting. In general substance, there aren8217;t major bloomers either except Sheila Dikshit being described as Delhi8217;s mayor, p.134, though one can sometimes complain about the nitty-gritty. 8220;And all over the city Delhi bright young things are yabbering away on their mobiles or sipping cappuccinos in Baristas India8217;s answer to Starbucks. But, of course, the cows are still there in the streets as they always have been; and old men smoke beedis as they always have done.8221; That8217;s a good sample of the style.

This isn8217;t a book for the Indian reader. However, 4.4 million foreign tourists came to India in 2006, compared with 3.4 million in 2004. Notwithstanding problems with infrastructure, the number of foreign tourists is increasing, even though it is low by cross-country yardsticks. Surely, they won8217;t always be knowledgeable and surely they won8217;t always want the heavier and more serious books. That8217;s the market Farndon has decided to target and given that objective, this isn8217;t a bad book. There are those that are worse, just as there will be ones that are better.