Comments on: This "Year of India" (3): Suketu Mehta, Bombay’s Biographer http://www.radioopensource.org/this-year-of-india-3-suketu-mehta-bombays-biographer/ Christopher Lydon in conversation on arts, ideas and politics Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:09:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: aisha http://www.radioopensource.org/this-year-of-india-3-suketu-mehta-bombays-biographer/#comment-93420 aisha Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:08:22 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=4887#comment-93420 Great interview. Mr. Mehta is thoughtful, lively, philosophical and unpretentious; he is full of surprising facts and arresting vignettes and his analysis is always nuanced and original. With a few skillful brushstrokes, he creates a bright, rich, textured, variegated picture of India. I really enjoyed this interview. Great interview. Mr. Mehta is thoughtful, lively, philosophical and unpretentious; he is full of surprising facts and arresting vignettes and his analysis is always nuanced and original. With a few skillful brushstrokes, he creates a bright, rich, textured, variegated picture of India. I really enjoyed this interview.

]]> By: Potter http://www.radioopensource.org/this-year-of-india-3-suketu-mehta-bombays-biographer/#comment-93419 Potter Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:29:24 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=4887#comment-93419 Suketu Mehta is delightful, brilliant- full of interesting descriptions, facts (numbers), stories, all of which go by too quickly. I had a second helping- (listened twice). So compare Mehta to Dickens and Balzac, but maybe also Studs Terkel. Regarding Mehta's description of the "train groups"... an image came forth from a few years ago. We traveled to Sri Lanka, that huge teardrop of an island off the southeastern coast of India. Our ex-daughter in law had family there, Tamil, and so we were staying with them. Sri Lanka, particularly the craziness of Colombo, I imagine to be like India in many ways. We saw all around evidence of what remained from British colonial rule. Staying in Colombo a couple of blocks from the Indian Ocean and the train tracks that ran parallel to it alongside the beach and into the city from the outlying area, on a morning walk with my camera ( too hot to walk during the day!) I was startled by the commuter rail going through. It was stuffed with white shirted workers on their way, hanging out of the windows, hanging on to the train steps. Suketu Mehta is delightful, brilliant- full of interesting descriptions, facts (numbers), stories, all of which go by too quickly. I had a second helping- (listened twice). So compare Mehta to Dickens and Balzac, but maybe also Studs Terkel.

Regarding Mehta’s description of the “train groups”… an image came forth from a few years ago. We traveled to Sri Lanka, that huge teardrop of an island off the southeastern coast of India. Our ex-daughter in law had family there, Tamil, and so we were staying with them. Sri Lanka, particularly the craziness of Colombo, I imagine to be like India in many ways. We saw all around evidence of what remained from British colonial rule. Staying in Colombo a couple of blocks from the Indian Ocean and the train tracks that ran parallel to it alongside the beach and into the city from the outlying area, on a morning walk with my camera ( too hot to walk during the day!) I was startled by the commuter rail going through. It was stuffed with white shirted workers on their way, hanging out of the windows, hanging on to the train steps.

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