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My Friend Sancho
My first book, My Friend Sancho, was published in May 2009, and went on to become the biggest selling debut novel released that year in India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and had earlier been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
My posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
I have three hypothetical questions for you guys. Humour me and try and read all the way through. One.…
I was on a CNN-IBN show earlier this evening, where the topic under discussion was the arrest of two…
I suppose I should display some empathy here, but I can’t help but be a little amused by the…
’Before anyone else was interested in the ornithology of terror he saw the gathering birds,’ Salman Rushdie writes about…
Check out this TED Talk by Tony Porter on how men get trapped in a ‘Manbox’—and women bear the…
04 August, 2011
Dead Rats and Incense Sticks
So here’s the story: 15 dead rats land up in the drains of St George’s Hospital in Mumbai. A massive stink ensues (literally), and the hospital staff can’t figure out where the smell is coming from. So:
The hospital’s staff tried different methods - burning incense sticks, spraying room refreshers - to ‘clear the air’, but to little avail.
And this is exactly the way in which the Indian government deals with our country’s poverty. Every single government measure to tackle poverty is equivalent to incense sticks and room fresheners—it smells good for a while, and then the stink is back. The rats remain.
And yeah, if you read this blog regularly, you know what I think the root cause is: the lack of economic freedom. If only Rajaji, Patel and Prasad had their way 60 years ago instead of Nehru…
Posted by Amit Varma in
Economics |
India |
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Small thoughts
