Fragments of Grace

Got a chance to read Pamela Constable's "Fragments of Grace" recently.Pamela is an award winning author and writes for The Washington Post.

It's an old book that I got to read more than a year after its publication.Out of all the books written on India recently this one is very realistic and 'down to earth'.'The World is Flat' is Thomas Friedman's hands on narration on Globalisation and the pivotal role India is playing in outsourcing world. He talks to CEOs of IT comapnies & Call Centers.He interviews the young graduates working in these companies.But Friedman's India is urban India and the transition sweeping urban India.Pamela's India is rural India,India battered by terrorism & 3 wars and a mighty country with an unfriendly neighbor.

Pamela Constable is a fearless journalist. Her memoirs are a warrior's journal.She has travelled far & distant to Taliban controlled Afghanistan,charred LTTE controlled territories and interviewed the Taliban Ministers & the 'Man on the street' enforcing 'immoral clothes' ban.Be it burnt down villages or vineyards of Afghanistan ,Pamela has travelled to all these isolated places to give a first hand account to Post's readers .What makes this piece of work unique is the honesty and zeal with she wants to gets the first hand account of the situation and talk to the victims or the criminals.She has travelled to Afganistan when it was being bombed by USA & she has travelled to Batticaloa in Sri Lanka during violent elections.

Between extended stays in south east Asia she returns to the safety & comfort of home for introspection. Adopting poor families , kids and stray dogs in strange land is also a woman's narration of the war and a relentless pursuit in finding and giving love.Be it the horrifying tale of Zaheeda Parveen or travelling to Ganges for her house help Pandey family son's 'Mundan'.Her approach is very compelling.

'Fragments of Grace' does falter on the history behind the Kashmir & Afghanistan conflict.I wish there were more details ,investigation in the reasons of the conflict.Chapters on Nepal could have been avoided.The massacre of the Royal family does not go beyond what we have already read and heard.

'Fragments of Grace' is more than a travelogue or a chronicle of political events in the south east Asia.This may not be a great piece of literature , but a compelling document of honesty & humanity it is.

Blues Clues

Courtsey : Hindustan Times

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