Early readers of the website asked me for reading recommendations so here I list a few of my favorites. Certain classics - The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby - endure of-course, but my top picks are closer to home; perhaps because books that touch a chord are usually ones that trigger memories of similar experiences. For the same reason, I guess, the books below are unabashedly commercial since I have a tough time relating to books with ten-page literary descriptions on a leaf’s color changing from green to yellow-brown in fall. I barely notice Fall actually (hopefully this doesn’t damage my literary pretensions); in any case here are my recommendations:
 
1. ‘English August’ by Upamanyu Chatterjee
Upamanyu Chatterjee’s delightful slacker novel with its wickedly funny portrayal of essentially timeless themes- the angst of suddenly being thrust into adulthood; feeling hopelessly out of place in one’s surroundings; and being unable to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that ‘life just isn’t meant to be this’- easily rises to the top of my favorites. Agastya Sen, the novel’s cynical, lost protagonist is my favorite character in Indian literature, and you can’t help but like him despite (or perhaps because of) his spending all his time smoking marijuana, inventing new excuses to shirk his duties as an IAS officer, lying dementedly, sneering at everyone, and reflecting on the futility of everything. I also really dig the various philosophical nuggets from the Gita, Marcus Aurelius’ ‘Meditations’, and his own beliefs that the author has liberally sprinkled through the novel.
 
Upamanyu has written a few more novels after that which I religiously picked up. I admire his wry, caustic writing which seems to be quite reflective of his own self (e.g. the dedication in his third novel, ‘The Last Burden’ reads: To my wife, Anne- while the going is good.) Wow, is that a dedication or a doomsday prophecy? However his last novel, ‘Weight Loss’ is avoidable, and so twisted that it is almost sad in a way. In ‘English August’ you get the sense that the young Agastya Sen is teetering on the edge of a cliff, and you desperately hope for his redemption; if Upamanyu is anything like Agastya, it seems that he couldn’t help himself from falling off by the time ‘Weight Loss’ was released almost twenty-five years later—in 2007, I think.
 
2. ‘Moth Smoke’ and ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’- both by Mohsin Hamid
While working in Singapore, I ran into a Pakistani investment banker in a bar one night. From cricket, (of course) our discussion turned to movies, predominantly Amitabh Bachchan’s, and I was delighted to find a kindred soul who knew verbatim dialogues from Kala Patthar, Trishul, and Deewar. Needless to say, we closed down the bar that night. Now, I am not a tree-hugging, planet saving, ‘World is a Family’ kinda socially conscious guy; but the chance encounter did make me feel that the borders that separate us are mostly political. Our next-door neighbors are more like us than we think they are, and Mohsin Hamid, the young Pakistani author’s brilliant novels further emphasize that.
 
‘Moth Smoke’, his first novel, is the story of the wasted life of Daaru, a young Pakistani banker, who slowly, almost deliberately, destroys himself and those around him with his heroin-addiction. It is a tight, gripping narrative, but I enjoyed it most for the startling parallels between contemporary Pakistan’s youth and their Indian brethren. ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’, Mohsin Hamid’s second novel, chronicles the impact of 9/11 on Changez, a young Pakistani management consultant in New York—but not in the usual sense. Rather than dwell on the reactions of the U.S to immigrants, the narrative instead focuses on the contradictory, sometimes eerie response of Changez to the attacks and the unexpected decisions he takes as a result. The novel is innovatively written in the form of a single monologue but never slackens pace; and the rich descriptions of Lahore city leave a lasting, lingering impact.
 
I tend to enjoy writing with self-destructive/wasted youth themes (please resist the impulse to play my shrink!), and Mohsin Hamid seems to be a resident expert on the subject. Highly recommended if you dig that kind of stuff.
 
3. Ruskin Bond (everything by him)
One of India’s best-loved novelists (and an undiscovered one internationally, I think), Ruskin Bond seems to capture a lifetime of ache, hope, and longing in a few measured words (e.g. ‘Its not time that is passing by; its you and I). I really dig all his poems, short stories and novels—he seems to be a dude who has lived within the boundaries of society, but always on its edges- someone who fitted in, but didn’t want to fit in; alone, but never lonely; busy but never lacking the idleness of solitude; a nicer Holden Caulfield, a less confused Agastya Sen.
 
He was so much of a role model for me in college (before IIM corrupted me with dreams of power and glory) that I went to meet him once unannounced at his house in Mussourie. But that is another story for which you will have to read ‘Keep off the Grass’ where the meeting has been fictionalized. For now, I quote one of his verses that I really liked:
 
As I walked home last night
I saw a lone fox dancing
In the cold moonlight.
I stood and watched.
Then took the low road, knowing
The night was his by right.
Sometimes, when words ring true,
I'm like a lone fox dancing
In the morning dew.
 
Sometimes (a very few times) when I was writing ‘Keep off the Grass’ and the words seemed to flow, I felt like the lone fox by the midnight lamp as well :)