Anti-social Thoughts on Social Media

Picture credit: Dries Augustyns on Unsplash

Dear Anand Kannan,

I am the Vice-president of Media Excellence with Social Media Trends International (SMTI). SMTI has been helping multi-national companies with their social media presence. I have over 15 years’ experience in social media campaigns. It is safe to say that I have a very good sense of best practices in social media messaging. I would like to set up some time to explore your current social media strategy and recommend next steps.

I hope you will take some time to think about this offer and suggest a time for us to talk.

Stay well.

Regards,

Warren Smith.

Dear Warren,

Thank you for your kind offer. Your timing is perfect. I have been struggling to understand the value and purpose of a social media presence. I did some further thinking after reading your mail.  I have several questions on my own use of social media and the company's.

Have you watched the movie Shrek? There is a memorable dialog in the movie. The authorities capture Shrek and Donkey. Donkey raises procedural questions on his arrest: 'No one informed me that I have a right to remain silent! I have a right to remain silent". Shrek's response is "You have the right Donkey, what you lack is the capacity".  

Old wisdom says it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open the mouth and remove all doubt. On social media, we have the option of remaining silent, and we seem to be happy to waive the right. Does that worry you as an industry expert?

I have several questions about this. What makes normal people pick up political and religious arguments with perfect strangers? Do they really think the strangers are open for persuasion any more than they themselves are? Do they not realize that these strangers have firm opinions molded by biased media feed, just like they themselves do?

When they post to social media, do they trust their ability to communicate all the shades of grey within the expressiveness allowed by the text limits? I will admit that I have doubts as to my own ability. So, I think finding you is a lucky development.

When normal people share an article, do they just mean it as something that their friends might be interested, or something that should be interested in? Is the reader to think the sharer agrees 100% with the contents of the article? Or 90% or just greater than 50%?

Do they check the validity of every news item they forward? Do they think the selfies they share convey the message they are intended to convey? 

Does everyone worry about what percentage of their friends the shared news bit is relevant to? Do they worry that people with different national, linguistic, religious or political background may find the news item irrelevant? Should they worry? Is sharing a news item that is irrelevant to a friend as rude as talking in your ethnic language to your buddy knowing there are others who don't follow the language?

Same question as to profound thoughts. What if a number people don't understand what you write? Is it their problem or yours? What is the minimum percentage of the people do you think should understand what you write? Is 50% enough, or should it be 90%?

Does it bother you that we are the product and not the consumer in the social media platform? Do people know that they are training algorithms by using the platform? Do people worry that clicking on a right-wing (or left wing) news story that Facebook thinks you might be interested in may train the learning algorithm to skew their feeds? Do they care? Should they care?

I think social media, much like communism is a great idea in theory, but human flaws stop it from being achieving that perfection in practice. As an expert, do you worry that we are playing a part in stopping social media from being all that it can be? I think I am lucky in having found an expert like you to help figure this out.

Even before social media came along, they used to say untold suffering seldom is. Has social media further endangered untold suffering? 

Does anyone else think like this? Am I anti-social? Or does that all this mean I'm thinking too much? Or just that I need you more than others do?

I have more questions, but decided keep it brief. Please take some time to think about this. As you may have noticed, I have been struggling to verbalize my difficult questions, so it is perhaps best if we met in person so I can take you up on your offer. Please let me know if you block a day off in June for us to discuss the above points.

Thanks and regards,

Anand Kannan.

Ponniyin Selvan - the Movie

There was a memorable dialog in a recent Tamil movie that otherwise proved unremarkable. An author is asked why he refuses to grant film rights for his novels. His response is “I describe a dark street. I want each of my readers to visualize the dark street themselves, in a way consistent with their experiences. I don’t want a filmmaker to do the visualization for them”.

That argument captures my objections to Ponniyin Selvan being filmed. By anyone. With anyone playing Vandiyathevan, Kundavai, Nandini, Vanathi, or Poonkuzhali. It’s impossible to please folks like me. I have a mental picture of the Kadambur Palace that no art director can match. I have a vivid sequence in mind of the dark murder sequence in volume 4. How dare anyone imply they can match it?

(Art: Aditi Anand Kannan)

  

We are talking about the greatest Tamil novel ever written. An undisputed epic.  A contemporary piece to Lord of the Rings. Tolkien gets credit for visualizing an epic with a richly imagined cast of hobbits, wizards and orks, and the landscape that make them come alive. But Tolkien did not have to worry about anyone proving him wrong on factual terms. Kalki’s work was arguably harder, as it talked about a well documented era of a 1000 year old dynasty.  He used enough of historical facts, and wove fiction and unusual interpretation of documented history. For example, Vallavaraiyan Vadhiyathevan was described as Kundavai’s husband in stone and bronze inscriptions. Vallam is a small town at a stone’s throw from Tanjavur. The easiest interpretation would be to fix his origins there. Kalki chose to portray him as a scion of the Vanar dynasty, originally far away from the Kaveri region. This allowed the character to view the Kaveri delta with unmixed wonder, and introduce the landscape to the reader in the process. It also made his devotion to Kundavi and the Chola royalty more impressive. There lies Kalki’s greatness.

When Ponniyin Selvan came out as a series starting in 1951, Maniyam, the artist sketched the characters in a way that was original, imaginative, and consistent in the three+ years that the series ran. The series had a following that has been unmatched since. Kalki re-ran the series again in 1968 and again in the 1980s, with art by Vinu and Maniyam Selvan (the son of the original artist). Each time, Kalki’s circulation spiked.  I believe I am a typical Ponniyin selvan fan; and I can visualize pretty much any character at will, thanks to the class and consistency of Maniyam and his successors.

Now getting to the main point of the article. I don’t believe anyone has the ability or resources to stay true to those visuals with live actors. It may have been feasible with gifted animation artists who are sworn to value authenticity over artistic license.  I mean good artists - not Soundarya Rajnikanth, the wonder artist who has Kochadaiyan to boast of.

That reminds me that it could all have been much worse. We dodged disaster  multiple times when MGR, Kamal Haasan and then Vijay (shudder!) were rumoured to make the epic into movies.  I’d rather have Donald Trump play Mahatma Gandhi than these gentlemen play Vandiyathevan. MGR’s aura would have demanded changes in the script that would have killed the story. Kamal Hasan’s ego and Vijay’s general inanity would have been insurmountable. MGR demonstrated my point spectacularly in Madhuraiyai Meeta Sundara Pandiyan. And Vijay in all the movies he has made.

A few miscellaneous points.

• With the new venture, there are reasons for optimism. I imagine that Mani Rathnam has sway to get all the actors to force them to swallow their egos and hide behind their characters.
•  I felt a bit of disappointment when I realized that Ilaiyaraaja is not writing the music, but on reflection realized that he may have found it hard to blend into the grander vision. A R Rehman should do better, just by virtue of his lack of ego.
• Aishwarya Rai, pretty as she is, is a very limited actor! Nandini’s character is one of the most complex ones in any novel. Beautiful, pitiable, ruthless, vile and brave all at the same time. I can’t think of any actress today who fits the bill, but Ms. Rai must rank in the bottom quadrant of all candidates. And there is the age thing. I mean, it is going to be hard to summon the outrage over a young girl being married to a 60 year old minor king, but I guess she can play Mandakini well, and there is the modern wonders that are called lighting and make-up. I still find it hard to buy into that one.
• I can’t think of anyone who can pull off Madhuranthakan and Sendan Amudan. Let’s see!
• But Vairamuthu? Really?! (Since I wrote this, there seem to be second thoughts on the film unit’s part). Morals aside, Vairamuthu is a misfit. He is too inconsistent and showy. Kalki was a gifted poet himself. I can’t see the need for new lyrics when the novel has classy pieces like ‘Alai Kadlum Oyndirukka…”.
• Mani Rathnam will need to curb his staccato style to match Kalki’s gift for dialog. News says Jeyamohan has been roped in as the dialog writer. Jeyamohan may have the opposite problem. Can Jeyamohan adapt to the original style and suspend his verbosity? Kalki’s dialog construction is somewhat like P G Wodehouse’s. Only folks who have attempted to write a scene can realize how natural the dialog flow is.  The only way this is going to work for folks to just imitate.
• It’s apparently a series of movies. A wise move. Actually, make that at least three!
• Kudos to Thailand as the location. Much as I think the visuals can't match my mental imagery, I look forward to a visual treat.

All that said, I will probably line up to watch the movie, first show! Such is the magic Kalki has woven.

I am envious of anyone who has not read the novel so far. You have a treat of a lifetime to look forward to. I look at you like the kid who gobbled up his ice cream and sees his sister starting her slow, relishing progress with hers!

I hope the movie is made at least well enough to capture the story's splendor for anyone who can’t read Tamil. (I don’t believe translated books do justice to this either). The other achievement this movie can dream of is to introduce this epic to the new attention-span challenged generation!  

EDIT: Related stories:

• Kalki and S S Vasan
• Picturizing Ponniyin Selvan
• Is A picture worth a 1000 words? Always?
• Movie Review: Part1
• Movie Review: Part 2

Really late reviews #1 - Mullum Malarum (Tamil Movie, 1978)

(Image Courtesy: Wikipedia)

(Mullum Malarum: 1978, directed by Mahendaran, starring Rajnikanth, Shobha, ‘Fatafat’ Jayalakshmi and Saratbabu; music by Ilaiyaraaja; cinematography by Balu Mahendra)

I had watched Mullum Malarum  as a schoolboy. I recall being vowed by the camera work and music. I recall vaguely being impressed by the movie. The songs stuck to memory, with Senthazham Poovil leading the pack. I recall thinking that the movie differed significantly from the source novelette by the same title, written by Umachandran, but don't remember the details.

It was a treat to watch it again.

To set the context, most Tamil movies in the late seventies where prone to overacting and over-the-top emotionalism. MGR had just acted in his last movie (and the movie was so bad that people should have been thankful!). Sivaji Ganesan had been continuing his string of ill-chosen projects. Case in point was Pilot Premnath, an incredibly bad movie that was released in the same year, 1978. (I personally believed he had completely lost it until he redeemed himself with Mudal Mariyaathai in 1985, and even better, Thevar Magan in 1992 but that is another topic).  Kamalahaasan and Rajnikanth were emerging as the front-line heroes, with movies such as Priya, Bhairavi, Aval appadithan, Sigappu Rojaakal, Shankar-Saleem-Simon, and Ilamai Oojnaladukidadhu. Senior actors such as Muthuraman and Sivakumar were still playing the parts of young men, but struggling to do justice. There were a few movies off the beaten track, such as Jayakanthan's Oru nadigai nadagam parkiral and Aval Appadithan. Rajnikanth was known for his 'style' and action movies, but was mostly playing the bad guy. Kamal Haasan was vacillating between helping senior directors portray tough roles and shallow action-romantic movies.

With most actors and directors coming from the stage background, most movies were dramatic, suffered from verbosity, and underused the visual aspects of storytelling. It's fair to say Mullum malarum came as a breath of fresh air. The movie mixes dialogs and visuals. Balu Mahendra, through his camera, added his own thread to the story. Ilaiyaraaja used a mixture of Carnatic music and folk music for the soundrack, and a novel use of percussion instruments for the background score.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the movie has been a pivotal one in Tamil cinema. Rajnikanth subsequently attained the stardom he seemed destined for. Sarathbabu went on to play the “second hero” for a couple of more decades. Balu Mahendra made his debut as a cinematographer, and went on to several successes with his camera and direction.

The story is of a brother and sister, who are orphaned young, and share a strong bond. Kali (Rajnikanth) is a ruffian, operates a winch in a hill station. He dotes on his sister, Valli . He starts on the wrong foot with his new boss, ‘the engineer’ Kumaran (Saratbabu). The relationship turns sour. Kali gets drunk and loses an arm in an accident; and despite the Kumaran’s efforts to help him, bears a grudge against him.

Valli plays the matchmaker and gets his brother married to Manga, the new settler in the town. Kumaran approaches Kali and asks for Valli’s hand in marriage. Out of spite, Kali refuses and hastily arranges to get his sister married to Murugesan, the local shopkeeper with questionable morals. Manga schemes to get Valli married to Kumaran. The story ends by revealing the decisions of Kali and Valli as to whom the latter ends up marrying. Anything more on the story, I might spoil it for you, so I’ll stop there. 

The story winds around a small town and its occupants, revealing their relationships a bit at a time. The sycophants, the tattle-tellers, newcomers taking their time to find their role in the village, the ruffian and his new boss – all characters are alive, real and almost touchable. Every scene and every dialog makes sense. No scenes inserted to appease the egos of stars. The movie ends at its high point – no anticlimaxes for Mahendran! The remarkable thing was that it was a commercial success as well.

The title of the movie (credit to the author, Umachandran) is a puzzle as well. Did he name his story to talk of a thorn and and a flower, or did he mean to say a thorn could blossom as well?

The climax is one of the most effective, but understated scenes. Both Rajnikanth and Shobha are stunning in the scene. No long dialogs and punch lines. Just two people who show us what normal people might do under difficult circumstances. Does anyone else think the dialog “Yaarunnu nenacha, Vallida!” is the precursor to Rajnikanth’s more recent “Kabalida!”? The new dialog got undeserving social media hype; I don’t recall the old one getting any mention in the reviews.

The subsequent real life successes of Balu Mahendra, Rajnikanth, Ilaiyaraaja and Mahendran were striking; the sad stories of the leading ladies were even more remarkable.

Shobha, the teenage acting sensation, stole the show. She held her own against Rajnikanth and the slightly more seasoned ‘Fatafat’ Jayalakshmi. As a contrast to most movies of that era when women in twenties or thirties played schoolgirls, here was a movie which cast a teenager for the role of a teenage sister devoted to her older-brother. What a novel idea! Shobha is brilliant in portraying her happiness, despair at her brother’s misfortunes and the conflict between her love for her brother and ‘the engineer’. Sadly, she didn’t have too many years after the movie. She passed away in 1981. She was 17.

‘Fatafat’ Jayalakshmi shines in a strong cast of actors, effortlessly portraying the transition from a happy-go-lucky glutton to the defiant housewife, doing the right thing regardless of what might happen to her marriage. Stunning performance! Sadly, she too, passed away in 1980.

Ilaiyaraaja, despite his sterling work, had courted some controversy with this movie. Padma Subramanyam, the Bharatanatyam dancer, accused him of stealing the tune from her dance-drama for the prelude of the soundtrack ‘Raman andalum’. I believe Ilaiyaraaja's position is that he composed the ballad for Padma’s dance-drama.

Coming back to the movie, I believe this is the movie that made Rajnikanth. And his best movie to date. If his recent films are any indication, he is unlikely to get close to beating it. If you haven’t watched the movie, watch it!

The Conflict - a short story

Arjun was staring out of the window indecisively. It was getting dark. He could see that traffic was easing up a bit. Time to go home. He could leave after sending the e-mail draft that he had already reviewed several times. 

He just could not bring himself to hit ‘send’. The hesitation was irrational, he knew. The deadline was midnight. No divine intervention would come before that. The list he reluctantly made up was the best that he was going to be able to do.

The office was empty; or so he thought until he heard footsteps. He looked up with idle curiosity. He was surprised to see that it was Kishen. Kishen was the chairman of the board; and until early in the year, had also been the president of the company. ‘What is he doing here?’, Arjun thought. Kishen had not participated in the day-to-day management for a while. Even when he did come in to the office, he never came to the fourth floor, where the middle managers worked.

His surprise must have shown on his face. Kishen smiled warmly and said. ‘Hey Arjun, good to see you. Looks like I startled you’.

‘Good to see you sir – I was just surprised. I didn’t know there was anyone else around’.

‘Stop calling me sir. You have known me for two years now, and I’ve been asking you for two years to call me Kishen’.

That was true. Despite the difference in age and status, Kishen had always treated him as an equal. They first met when Arjun won the award for the best young manager. Kishen had taken him out for dinner after the event and told him that he thought Arjun had the potential to get to the very top. While that was flattering, it just seemed like a well-meaning, but exaggerated compliment. Kishen had followed through by seeking him out whenever they saw each other and making the time to talk. 

‘So how are you doing Arjun?’

‘I won’t lie to you sir.. eh, Kishen. I’ve been stressed. You heard that I’m going to lose a big chunk of my team, right?’.

‘Yeah. Singh told me that your team is badly hit. How bad is it?’.

‘I’m going to lose twenty people out of the hundred and sixty-odd. It’s not just the number. For me to meet the budget targets, I have to let many senior folks go’.

‘I understand Ajju. That's tough. Anyone I know?’

A surprise again. ‘Ajju’ was a name only his close friends used. How did Kishen even know that name?

With some hesitation, he said, ‘A few that you might know. Francis, Raj and Dhruv. Dhruv was the toughest decision to make. He was my team lead and mentor in my early days’.

 ‘Dhruv? I find it hard to picture him as your mentor. You both seem very … different’. He pronounced ‘Dhruv’ like ‘Drew’. 

After a pause, Kishen said, 'Hang in there. You are not considering leaving, are you?'.

Arjun had been considering that, but didn't want to say so. He remained quiet. Luckily, the office attendant interrupted, offering to bring them coffee. They both nodded their assent.

It was getting painful, so Arjun tried to change the subject. ‘What brings you here, Kishen? I didn’t think you handled day to day work anymore. And that too, a visit to the fourth floor?’

Kishen smiled again. He looked twenty years younger when he smiled. No wonder, Anita, the management intern, had been telling everyone she had a crush on him.

‘That is a good question. I’ve been coming into work every day this month. Dharmpal Singh is having a tough time with the restructuring. I had to help. And as for the fourth floor, I just wanted to see who was still motivated to stay late. A way for me to get some ground-truths. I used to do that regularly when I was the president. I have to say I’ve never seen Dhruv here at this time all these years’.

‘Dhruv’s strength is his judgement, not the number of hours he puts in. I wouldn’t be where I am but for what he taught me in the early years’. After some pause, Arjun added, ‘just like you have been in the later part of my career’.

‘I can see why you are struggling with the decision then. This is going to sound heartless, but I think he is better off elsewhere. And from our point of view, he doesn’t fit in anymore’.

It did sound heartless, but Arjun didn’t know how to say it without exposing his disapproval. He was quiet.

Another interruption. Coffee was served. 

Kishen resumed when the attendant left.  ‘Ok, look at it this way. Did you know that Dhruv can make a lot more money in management consulting?’.

‘Yeah, I know he is sought after. I always thought he’s here out of loyalty to us. But why do you say he doesn’t fit anymore?’.  

‘Let me see - how do I say it without seeming even more cold? His management style made sense when we were happy with incremental growth. He can’t, or won’t make any tough decision. I never told you this, but it was me who picked you over him for your current job’.

Now, that was a bigger surprise, enough to distract him from all the gloom. Arjun never thought Kishen involved himself with staffing decisions at that level.

‘What? Really?’

‘Yes, and I will tell you one more thing. I would have asked Singh to let Dhruv go anyway, even if you hadn’t had him on the list. Does that help make you feel better?’.

‘Maybe, but still struggling with why you’d do that. There are traits of Dhruv that you don’t see’.

‘Nothing wrong with him Arjun. It’s a balance problem. We need independent thinkers, disruptors and doers in the management. The problem is that he is just a doer, and we have too many of those’.

It was beginning to make sense. ‘Does that make me as heartless as Kishen?’ he thought. He tried to think of other doers in the same rank and salary, but couldn't think of any.

‘Ok Arjun, you may think I am manipulating you. But I want you to stop thinking of layoffs as harming people. They will all be fine’.

‘But what about loyalty? These guys are unquestionably loyal’.

‘Yes, that is unfortunate’.

‘And my team will hate me. They love Dhruv’. That just came out. He had not meant to say that aloud.

‘Blame me. Tell them we had a chat and I refused to budge’.

‘This definitely helps’, Arjun thought; ‘should I be worried that I’m more worried about what people think than doing the right thing?'.

‘Arjun, this is simpler than you think. After an initial disappointment, Dhruv and the others will be just fine. I’m taking responsibility for all this. Singh is telling everyone that I personally oversaw this restructuring. I’m telling you I’d have added Dhruv’s name to the list anyway. You had a smaller part in all this than you thought. Telling the right decision from the wrong one is not as easy as it seems. Stop agonizing over this’.

Kishen finished his coffee, flashed another smile, and left. It was dark outside. All lights in the parking lot were on. The cleaners were entering the building.

After some hesitation, Arjun sent the note, unchanged, to Human Resources.

Image credit: Sajeeb Ahmed Photography, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Book review - India Discovered

India Discovered by John Keay

This fascinating book starts in 1783, around the arrival of Sir William Jones and Colin Mackenzie to the shores of India and covers roughly a century and half of exploration, discovery and research on India. I thoroughly enjoyed the brief volume (211 pages).

The book starts with the arrival of Sir William Jones in India, and describes how he falls in love with India, Sanskrit and nature. Jones was a lawyer, legislator, linguist and a keen student of mathematics, astronomy and sciences.  The original motivation for his trip to India was the generous salary that would let him retire in comfort. However, his curiosity and quest for learning tied him to India and made him learn Sanskrit, collect manuscripts and get tutored in the Sanskrit classics that were until then remained in the oral tradition. He translated Kalidasa’s Shakuntala to English.

Jones writes:

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots and verbs and forms of grammar, can possibly be produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source.

While this sounds self-evident now, it was a phenomenal intellectual leap at that time. This theory later led to the study and creation of a classification called the Indo-European family of languages.

Jones’ work helped date Alexander’s visit to India precisely, and placed the references to Pataiputra and Chandragupta Maurya, which will later help piece together, the Mauryan history and Ashoka’s life.

The hero of the chapters “Thus spake Ashoka” and, “Black and Time Stained rocks” is James Princep. This story starts in 1819. The chapter is a thrilling story of how Pricep associates William Jones’ work with subsequent discovery of rock carvings and numismatic clues. This fascinating bit of history was explored further in the book “Ashoka, the search for India’s last emperor”. Click here to read my review of that book.

Princep’s last achievement was the creation of two plates showing the evolution of the modern Devanagari script from Ashoka Brahmi scripts, a tool that has helped archeologists since.

The book then moves on to the exploration of the Buddhist history of India by Alexander Cunningham, the discovery of Ajanta, and Ellora caves, comparisons with European art, Greek influence on Gandhara art. The chapters are a wonderful read that describe the realization of the composite and heterogeneous nature of Indian art, the Jain and Buddhist art that are very different from the Moghul art, the initial reaction of the Europeans when they encountered the Khajuraho temples (which they thought was ‘A little warmer than necessary’!).

The next section describes how Sir John Marshall and Alexander Cunningham discover Mohanejo-daro, Harappa and the origins of the Indian civilization. Who were the Indus valley people? One theory is that they were Dravidian people who were either overrun by the invading Aryans who went battled on the horseback and hence had a military advantage. Or were they wiped out a calamitous flood? Marshall didn’t draw conclusions as to the exact relationship of the Indus Valley civilization to the Aryans. A more recent book by Graham Hancock presents a well- argued theory on the timeline for Indus valley, the Vedas and the Aryans. I found both these chapters and the Hancock arguments fascinating.

The story of the birth of Survey of India is fascinating as well. Early surveyors were really military folks on specific assignments to map the terrain for to assist the military operations. Amazingly, they had time for interest in archeology, ethnology and art exploration.  The first self-appointed full time surveyor was William Lambton. Lambton, his team and his successor George Everest braved the weather, health hazards, leeches, tigers and deep forests to undertake one of the greatest mathematical exercises known to mankind at that time – surveying and triangulating the whole territory of India. This, Keay explains in greater detail in The Great Arc.

There is a chapter talks of how Colonel James Tod is moved by the story of princess  Krishna Kumari who is poisoned by her father as the only way out of a desperate political deadlock. Tod then goes on to chronicle the history of the Rajputs, strikes a great rapport with the Rajputs and their subjects alike and documents his pilgrimage to the Dilwara  complex In Mount Abu.

The curiosity of the Brits extended to the flora fauna, and the tribes of India. A noteworthy discovery by one Dr. Wallich is  the Assam tea, which he rightly predicts would be a huge success back home.

To wrap up, the characters in the book display a great deal of tenacity, objectivity and quest for knowledge. What would motivate and Englishman to learn Sanskrit, explore the animals and plants of an unfamiliar region, or cultivate a curiosity in an emperor who lived two thousand years ago? Why would he argue people back home on whether a mountain that he saw could actually be taller than any in the Andes or Alps?

Folks in India have a black or white view of the British; the British are either the monsters who exploited the country, jailed Gandhi and killed innocent folks in Jalianwala Bagh; or they built the railways, gave India an administrative system, and made a nation out of a bunch of disconnected princely states. (Ok, made *three* nations). The heroes of the book provide an alternative view of British motives. I find the description of a few British characters who are genuinely curious and bent on learning fascinating. These folks spent a lifetime fighting against the challenges of a new country, the political vitriol from guys such as Lord Macaulay, or their own biases or their day jobs to advance something out of academic interest. They are inspiring for that reason alone.

A few other extracts from the book:

Keay on the role of the English in discovering and promoting the heritage of India

For every act of vandalism, there were several of conservation and for every paragraph of orientalist disparagement, there was a page of wide eyed wonder… On balance though, I believe that to the scholars of the Raj, India’s heritage came to represent not some antithetical ‘other’ to be denigrated and marginalized, but a spectacular survival with which they were anxious and proud to be associated, a jewel indeed, in the crown.

Warren Hastings on Gita and Mahabharat:

“I hesitate not to pronounce the Gita a performance of great originality, of a sublimity of conception, reasoning and diction almost unequalled; and a single exception, amongst all the known religions of mankind of a theology accurately corresponding to the Christian disposition, and most powerfully illustrating its fundamental doctrines….

I should not fear to place, in opposition to the best French versions of the most admired passages of Iliad and Odyssey, or of the first and sixth books of our own Milton… the English translation of the Mahabharata. …

These will survive when the British dominion of India has long ceased to exist and when sources which once it yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance.