Today, I am happy to introduce my readers to Anand Giridharadas.
Some of you may already know Anand. He is an American-born child of Indian immigrants, who moved to India in 2003 to work at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. From 2005 to 2008 he was South Asia correspondent for The New York Times , based in Mumbai. His column “Letter from India” appears twice a month in The New York Times and its global edition, The International Herald Tribune. He now lives in the village of Verla in Goa, India, and is writing a book about social change in modern India.
When I read articles about India by foreign journalists, my reaction quite often is a face-palm. These articles are usually peppered with inaccuracies, interpretations and conclusions based on a poor understanding of India's complexities, a breathless exaggeration and a niggling lack of authenticity. I have often wondered why these articles are not written by Indians themselves. This is an issue not only in the media, but also in Western academia where topics related to India are not adequately presented from the Indian perspective nor represented by Indians themselves.
In this context, it is refreshing to read Anand's articles. He comes across as being very sincere, empathic and balanced when talking about India. I present a few examples for you to read and judge for yourself:
India Calling
The Special Sting of Personal Terrorism
In Cellphone, India Reveals an Essence
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The reason it is tough for Indians to write such articles is that they cannot see the forest for the trees. They are just too close to the reality and are unable to look at it from a distance.
ReplyDeleteAshok from Switzerland
Ashok,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. What you say is true to an extent. There are many other things which ail journalism in general and Indian journalism in particular.
LL
AG' brand of journalism is dispassionate and objective as all real journalism should be.It made for refreshing reading!
ReplyDeleteS