Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India – Pankaj Mishra
In Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, Pankaj Mishra captures an India which has shrugged off its sleepy, socialist air and has become instead kitschy, clamorous and ostentatious. From a convent educated beauty pageant aspirant to small shopkeepers planning their vacation in London, Pankaj Mishra paints a vivid picture of a people rushing headlong to their tryst with modernity. An absolute classic, this is a witty and insightful account of India’s aspirational middle class.
Small and short conversations with different people about their mindset and living style are described in this book. The people includes young women from Jhansi, with dreams of winning a beauty pageant, and naxalites in Bihar trying to initiate a revolution, and a young man from Gujarat speaking of killing Muslims in public. The author has shared all his experiences through this book. Butter Chicken In Ludhiana: Travels In Small Town India is an interesting read with a rich variety of languages and cultures. The stories in this book are full of irony, humour, and violence. There are so many characters portrayed in this book, and Mr Sharma from Ambala stands out.
The lifestyles of both village and city folk are depicted by the author, in this book which narrates the differences between the dreams and psychology of these people. In Butter Chicken In Ludhiana, the author talks about the reason of unemployment, which is caused by small fast food chains in small towns.
When the Istanbul police raid a counterfeit goods factory in the run-down district of Tarlabasi, a young man with explosives strapped to his chest blows himself up in front of them. In the process, Istanbul’s Inspector Çetin Ikmen is injured. Documents found in the factory lead the authorities in both Istanbul and London to believe that a terrorist attack, in part orchestrated from the Tarlabasi factory, is about to be enacted in the British capital. Ikmen goes undercover among the North London Turkish community, although what he uncovers there is certainly not what his British colleagues were expecting.
