Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense of Every India

This is one wholesome book that accurately describes the middle class Indian social and cultural milieu prior to the 90s. If you were born before the 90s this book will make you grin and give you a "feel good" nostalgia just re-living the 'good old days' through the author's words!! Santosh Desai, should've got far more credit for this brilliant piece of work. He vividly and humorously describes the quirks, simple joys and trials of those times. If you were middle class, yet feel you lived a full and enriching childhood/ early adulthood and would love to return to that time and place, at least for a while in your mind...pleeeeeeeeeease read this and be prepared to giggle and laugh at the simplicity and genuineness of the people and times despite hardships and low technology that barely assisted our daily living!!!

Good reading,motivational & inspirational.

It's the fourth copy I've bought. Two for myself - I lent one and bought one to replace it. And I bought two more to gift friends. Highly recommended read for anyone 20-70 - or older! Enjoyable by every reader.I love the short essay format. There is no need for continuity. You can pick it up and read 1 essay at a time or marathon it, as you please. Caters very well to busy lives and shorter attention spans.Tickles the brain, lends a perspective unthought of. LOVE IT.

I liked it enough to buy and give as a gift to two friends. It is based on Santosh Desai's columns for the Times of India. Some columns and therefore some chapters were much better than others. It's fairly readable, but based on his observations not on hard facts. I don't suggest this book to those who are interested in more data/statistics-driven books, but to those who enjoy reading light observations of various facets of Indian culture, such as the multi-layer tiffin box (or dabba), the Indian thali (platter with sampler of different dishes), the matrimonial ad and its unique language, the good old Bajaj scooter, and so forth.