The Elephant, the Tiger, & the Cell Phone – Shashi Tharoor

The title…. “The Elephant, The Tiger and the cellphone” is the indicator of his thoughts of how to India has transformed over the decade after independence. This is my first book I am reading of Shashi Tharoor…its been a different experience… Lot my friends said he is an awesome writer puts his thought in a very different way…I accept this to a certain extent, there are some areas in which I have difference of opinions…well its absolutely ok…its after all an opinion…if I had no different opinion my existence would be redundant isn’t it?

I loved the starting part where he makes a mention of India transforming from the Elephant, in its jungle directing the right and the wrong, to a tiger getting more people into its territory. He later goes on to give his views on a lot of topics…rt from his child hood, the cities he spent his life in, his experiences on various changes in India, the diaspora, the common mans life, the way Indian thoughts have changed over….

He goes on to praise Kerala for a lot of developments….some arguments I do buy but not all…I dont agree with him completely…there are also other areas where it needs improvements… he is a bit over optimistic in that sense…I got to know a lot about kerala from the book but my practical input from my surroundings is not always the same as he has tried to portray in the book… definitely it can be cause of the attachment he has to his home place….

I loved the description about Ajanta and Ellora that he has given towards the end of the book…I was on my plans to go there when I started reading the book…helped me get some idea of how I can plan the schedule of my tour… will go there soon… thanks for those valuable inputs…

Overall a very insightful book on his thought process and his hopes about India…Definitely improves the Indian Pride and shows the future is promising.

The most closest to my heart was his identification of the diversity of Indian Existence – both the prayer and the technology blended so well in the example of a software engineer coming to Putparthi…Awesome!!!

Read it at leisure when you have a lot of time at hand…definitely not a must read…but surely a worth read…