The Beautiful and the Damned - book review

As the name suggests in this book the author has tried to capture several facets of life in modern India in its contrasting shades. How on the one hand Indian economy is booming with lots of outsourced jobs and foreign investment pouring in, and on the other hand millions of Indians are still living without the basic amenities, thousands of farmers are committing suicide every year and a lot of Indians are struggling to come to terms with the changing and confused environment. The idea is good, but I am not entirely happy with the execution. The author, Siddhartha Deb, himself an Indian, left India in the early 2000s to study in America, and he wrote this book on his return.

Let me give a brief overview of the chapters. The book consists of 5 chapters -

1. The opening chapter is about Arindam Chaudhari, the self proclaimed management guru and the chairman of IIPM and Planman media. In this chapter Deb tells us how Mr Chaudhari is making a living on the dreams and aspirations of the youth of India, who want to fit in and be a part of the corporate culture. He gives us a close look of Arindam Chaudhari the man, his background and business. And much of it is critical if not derisive. No wonder he got a court injunction on the publication of this chapter, hence in the latest copies of the book being sold in India this chapter has been omitted. But due to the negative publicity the chapter is easily available on the internet on various blogs.
2. This chapter is about the flag bearers of the booming economy, the Indian engineer. I found this chapter kind of confusing I couldn't really make out what point the author was trying to make, except for the fact that there is a great divide between the dreams and achievements of the engineers of today.
3. This chapter is about the plight of the farmers of India. Deb has focused on farmers from the telangana region of Andhra Pradesh who used to grow a crop called Red Sorghum. This chapter again, highlights some issues like - how industrial development has adversely affected Indian farmers, but lacks proper analysis.
4. The 4th chapter is about the huge mass of temporary workers in India. This chapter was much better than its predecessors, the author interviewed some workers from a steel factory in Andhra Pradesh, and gave us an account of their lives and their reasons for doing what they were doing.
5. The final chapter is about a girl from the North Eastern state of Manipur who works in New Delhi. This was the best chapter in the whole book. Although this chapter didn't deal with one single issue, but through the the protagonist's account of her life, the author pointed out the alienation that people from the North East feel from the mainland. The account was personal and very heartfelt, and in a way the protagonist Esther was as much the hero of this book as she was for her state and North East India.

Apart from the 5 chapters the book also carried an introduction where the author spoke of several things, most notable among them was about a man Named Abdul Jabbar who runs an NGO for the women widowed in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The book is a nice read, it brought forth a lot of things that I didn't know about my country, although the issues in general lacked in depth analysis, but then I don't think analysis of issues was the point of this book. What I disliked about the book and the author in particular was his mostly sardonic tone throughout the book, the kind of tone one finds (atleast I have experienced first hand) in Indians who have lived in the West for quite a few years and somehow feel themselves to be superior to the rest of us. Also the fact that I am prejudiced against these kind of people, may have led me to being too critical of the author.

All in all I would say The Beautiful And The Damned is a good fast paced read, with less of the beautiful and more of the damned. But the author can hardly be blamed for that, that's how our country is shaping up.