Three old books, but fine vacation reads
Hindustan TimesOne of the joys of a Christmas and New Year vacation is the world slows down and you can catch up with things you’ve been postponing, sometimes for years. As the cover says, “If you’re reading this book in English it’s probably because of Thomas Macaulay.” A simple but telling acknowledgement of his famous minute on education which, though undoubtedly disparaging of Indian science and philosophy, literature and religion, is the reason why India has such strength in English. To use Macaulay’s own words, it created “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” That, I would add, is the basis of our success in IT and why we fare so well when we work abroad. Called Dining with the Maharajas, this is essentially a book of royal recipes but you don’t need to be an aspiring cook to want to own it. They’re trying terribly hard to look the role, just in case time and lack of royal attention have made them proletarian!
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