Mili Rathod hasn’t seen her husband in twenty years—not since she was promised to him at the age of four. Yet marriage has allowed Mili a freedom rarely given to girls in her village. Her grandmother has even allowed her to leave India and study in America for eight months, all to make her the perfect modern wife. Which is exactly what Mili longs to be—if her husband would just come and claim her.
Bollywood’s favorite director, Samir Rathod, has come to Michigan to secure a divorce for his older brother. Persuading a naïve village girl to sign the papers should be easy for someone with Samir’s tabloid-famous charm. But Mili is neither a fool nor a gold-digger. Open-hearted yet complex, she’s trying to reconcile her independence with cherished traditions. And before he can stop himself, Samir is immersed in Mili’s life—cooking her dal and rotis, escorting her to her roommate’s elaborate Indian wedding, and wondering where his loyalties and happiness lie.
I have really mixed feeling about India – one on hand, it’s the land of my birth and there’s so much to love there, but the way people are literally destroying the country, makes me very sad. There’s so much potential there, but most people, especially the politicians seem to have made a game of “What can destroy India faster”!
An ancient civilization, which has given so much to the world, Indians are, in my opinion, more inward looking than outward looking. We are so much in love with our past that we tend to brush aside our present and give little or no thought to our future. We get so caught up in little and silly things, that we miss the forest for the trees!
The country is so rich and diverse, both geogrphically and culturally starting with the Himalayas in the north to the Indian Ocean to the south, the deserts of the Thar and the Rann of Kutch in the west to the hilly terrain of the exotic north-east. There are 25 states, 7 Union Territories and is the second most populous country in the world, after China with an estimated population of 1.21 billion who speak more than 1365 rationalised mother tongues with 29 languages having more than a million native speakers each!
India’s cultural history spans over 4,500 years and the foundations of India’s main religion, Hinduism was laid down as between 3500 to 2500 years ago, when most of the western world was probably cavemen! Probably this is why India was the rich bird, ripe for plucking through the ages – from the Persians, Greeks, Mongols, Mughals, to finally the English, Portuguese and the French. A lot of India’s historically rich treasures were plundered and taken away by the conquerors (and never returned till date)
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as of April 2015, the Indian economy is nominally worth US$2.306 trillion; it is the 7th-largest economy by market exchange rates, and is, at US$7.996 trillion, the third-largest by purchasing power parity, or PPP.
All this talk about India has now made me super nostalgic. I remember reading how the last of the British soldiers left India from the shores of the Gateway of India in Bombay, an edifice, which ironically was constructed in 1911 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary
Ok, going to stop with this nostalgia with a tune that many of us, especially those who grew up in a certain era will recognize…..Mile Sur Tera Mera….the original plus the new version
Calcutta 1837. The East India Company rules India – or most of it; and its most notorious and celebrated son, Xavier Mountstuart, has gone missing.
William Avery, a down-at-heel junior officer in the Company’s army, is sent to find him, in the unlikely company of the enigmatic and uncouth Jeremiah Blake. A more mismatched duo couldn’t be imagined, but they must bury their differences as they are caught up in a search that turns up too many unanswered questions and seems bound to end in failure.
What was it that so captivated Mountstuart about the Thugs, the murderous sect of Kali-worshippers who strangle innocent travellers by the roadside? Who is Jeremiah Blake and can he be trusted? And why is the whole enterprise shrouded in such secrecy?
In the dark heart of Company India, Avery will have to fight for his very life, and in defence of a truth he will wish he had never learned.
It is Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war over what was to become Bangladesh. A hard-working bank clerk, Gustad Noble is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter falls ill; his promising son defies his father’s ambitions for him. He is the one reasonable voice amidst the ongoing dramas of his neighbours. One day, he receives a letter from an old friend, asking him to help in what at first seems like an heroic mission. But he soon finds himself unwittingly drawn into a dangerous network of deception. Compassionate, and rich in details of character and place, this unforgettable novel charts the journey of a moral heart in a turbulent world of change.
In this award-winning, internationally acclaimed novel, Tharoor has masterfully recast the 2,000 year-old epic, The Mahabharata, with fictional but highly recognizable events and characters from twentieth-century Indian politics. Chronicling the Indian struggle for freedom and independence from Great Britain, Tharoor directs his hilarious satire as much against Indian foibles as the bumbling of the British rulers.
Mili Rathod hasn’t seen her husband in twenty years—not since she was promised to him at the age of four. Yet marriage has allowed Mili a freedom rarely given to girls in her village. Her grandmother has even allowed her to leave India and study in America for eight months, all to make her the perfect modern wife. Which is exactly what Mili longs to be—if her husband would just come and claim her.
Memories and Such 