Lou’s Top 5 Indian reads

I hope that some of you will be joining me in India in the next few months. I have not had too many confirmations thus far but I remain optimistic. With this in mind I have included my top 5 India related books.

1. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
   A crazy but true auto biography of an escaped Australian convict. You’ll be booking your ticket as you finish the last page.
   Lou’s Barry Ronge Rating: A Noteworthy Nine
   
2. Q&A by Vikas Swarup (the deputy high commissioner of India in SA incidentally)
   An illiterate and uneducated boy from the slums wins the Indian show “Who wants to be a billionaire?”. The outraged show organisers accuse him of cheating. The story unfolds as he explains why he knew each of the answers. A delightful* read. *I’ve always wanted to say that – does it sound like something Barry would say?
   Lou’s Barry Ronge Rating: A Superlative Seven and a half
   
3. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
   The auto biography of a women in her mid thirties who escapes the claustrophobic pressure of real life by running away for a year. She spends four months in Italy eating in Rome, four months in India praying at an Ashram and the final four months in Indonesia - yes, you guessed it – loving.
   Lou’s Barry Ronge Rating: A Scintillating Seven
   
4. Shalimar the Clown: Salman Rushdie
   A harrowing tale of love and betrayal set in the foothills of war-torn Kashmir [hey, I am really getting into this].
   Lou’s Barry Ronge Rating: An Enigmatic Eight
   
5. City of Djinns; a year in Delhi [from whence this blog name comes]: William Dalrymple
   A beautiful portrayal of Delhi and its history. This is the man that helped me to understand Delhi traffic. I’ve included my favourite passage.
   
   “Balvinder Singh [Dalrymple’s taxi driver], son of Punjab Singh, Prince of Taxi
   Drivers, may your moustache never grow grey! Nor your liver cave in with
   cirrhosis. Nor your precious Hindustan Ambassador ever again crumple in a
   collision – like the one we had with the van carrying Mango Frooty Drink.
   
   Although during my first year in Delhi I remember thinking that
   the traffic had seemed both anarchic and alarming, by my second visit I
   had come to realize that it was in fact governed by very strict rules. Right of
   way belongs to the driver of the largers vehicle. .. On the road, as in many
   other aspects of Indian life, Might is Right. ”
   Lou’s Barry Ronge Rating: An Evocative Eight