Shashi Tharoor is a good writer of contemporary politics .....The fact that he was considered for the position of the UN Secretary General is enough to establish his political credentials.......Becoming a minister of state in his very first outing in the Lok Sabha is an icing in the cake for Tharoor ........
This book is one of the very best I have read in recent times.... The book marries Indian mythology with the freedom struggle and recent politics ....... Filled with humor and sarcasm, the author tells both stories very successfully and also chips in with his subtle observations (especially about independence and after) ......
The vast array of characters in the epic, along with numerous sub-plots embedded into the main plot, make for an absorbing narrative..... Tharoor has brilliantly mapped these mythological characters and events to the freedom fighters, politicians, bureaucrats and the evolution of the modern state of India .........
Every chapter reveals an unexpected parallelism between past and present or a breathtakingly startling point of view ........ No Indian who has lived through the Emergency will again think of its chief protagonist without recalling the fictionalised scene of her portentous birth ..........
The end result after reading this book is an account that offers food for thought in a mildly palatable way !!!
