The Beautiful And The Damned: Life In The New India

Review: Sarah Warwick

Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Beautiful And The Damned: Life In The New India
Siddhartha Deb
Viking, £14.99, no ebook

THE economic rise of India over the last decade has been euphoric and well reported. Not so the fates of the country’s ordinary men and women, says Siddhartha Deb as he sets off to discover the cannon fodder that’s been fuelling India’s new place in the global pantheon.

The resulting series of snapshots of the little people — the waitresses, call-centre workers, union organisers — shows us a mottled picture of a country that has much in common with the inequality and exploitation of Britain post-industrialisation.

But, although Deb’s beautifully written portraits of the common man hark back to the political writings of George Orwell or Henry Mayhew, this is no polemic. A skein of dark humour that runs through the fabric of this work means it is more biting than bleak. A good read.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, September 10, 2011