The new, old India

"In the ordinary course of human affairs countries churn slowly.
. . and then there are moments of special upheaval, when empires depart, when
ideologies rotate. . . . India was in the midst of such a moment. The meanings of
destiny, family, love, class--of what it means to be Indian--were being defined
anew by millions of people, all at once."

Author Anand Giridharadas is describing today's India, a
country that's predicted to pass up China in economic growth (9.4 percent in
2010) even as 80 percent of its more than 1 billion people live in persistent
and grotesque poverty (less than $2 a day).

An Indian American, Giridharadas is well positioned to
explain India to the western world. In India Calling he weaves together the story
of his grandparents, who were professionals in India; of his parents, who left India
in the '70s for the U.S.; and of himself, an American with a vague and mostly secondhand
picture of India. Seeking to remedy this, to get to know this country, in 2003
he moved to Bombay as a consultant and then began writing for the International
Herald Tribune.