• About



    My book, India Becoming, will be published on March 15th, 2012. Read an excerpt in The New Yorker.

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  • Highlights

    I write a lot about development and change in modern India--how new wealth is changing the country, for better and for worse. See these reports from the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. (1, 2).

    I'm particularly interested in (and concerned by) the environmental destruction being wrought by development. See this report on coastal erosion from Granta, and this report on India's garbage crisis.

    I've also written on development for The Atlantic (an essay review on Amartya Sen ) and The Economist (on the digital divide).

    I've written several literary essays and reviews over the years. See this one on VS Naipaul, from Transition, and this one on Indian literature, from The New Statesman.

    Two articles on the five-year anniversary of the tsunami (1, 2), from The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. These follow-up from my two original reports on the tsunami, published in The New Yorker (1, 2).

writing

Politics Into Economics Don’t Go

Monday, July 16th, 2001
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An essay on the literature of immigrants, published in Index on Censorship
The end of the Cold War altered political realities; it also changed the way the West receives–and reads–immigrants

Techno-Brahmins

Sunday, March 25th, 2001
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Review of India Unbound, by Gurcharan Das, The New York Times Book Review

To Hell in His Handbasket

Monday, December 18th, 2000
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Review of Eastward to Tartary, by Robert Kaplan, published in The Nation
Given his penchant for grand narratives, it’s a little strange that Kaplan misses the larger picture, the broad canvas upon which the events he describes are unfolding. But that’s the danger of serving history too faithfully.

Subcontinental Divide

Sunday, December 10th, 2000
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Review of The Other Side of Silence, by Urvashi Butalia, The New York Times Book Review

Wages of Sin

Sunday, August 27th, 2000
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Review of An Obedient Father, by Akhil Sharma, The New York Times Book Review

Inside the Jihad

Thursday, August 10th, 2000
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An interview with Ahmed Rashid, published in Atlantic Unbound

12 Million Strangers

Sunday, April 9th, 2000
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Review of The Blue Bedspread, by Raj Kamal Jha, The New York Times Book Review

Two Indias

Wednesday, March 15th, 2000
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Clinton celebrates India’s high-tech achievements, but is he overlooking the 75 percent of the nation that still lives in the countryside? An op-ed piece from The Boston Globe

Sentimental Education

Sunday, February 27th, 2000
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Review of The Romantics, by Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times Book Review

Only Disconnect

Friday, January 21st, 2000
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The unedited transcript of an interview with VS Naipaul that ran in Harper’s.