Name of the Author: Saba Naqvi
Year of Publication: 2012
No. of Pages: 195
Publisher: Rainlight
About the Book:
The book is by and large a description of places visited by the author in search of secular India in a religious context. The commonality across all the places is that all of them draw crowds from across different religions and have a religiously heterogeneous set of followers. It is heartening to note that there are still a host of places, regions, states in our country that are not divided on matters of faith and belief and can and do happily coexist. On a somewhat unhappy note, the author has quite candidly pointed to the politicization as well as commercialisation of religion for personal gains.
The book promised to be an interesting read but halfway through, it started becoming repetitive and boring. The descriptions were not descriptive enough and were superficial as they did not really paint a picture of the places but only of isolated interviews. The final section of religious minority and Bollywood was interesting as was the autobiographical account at the beginning of the book.In fact, it was the autobiographical that had set a great tone for the book and raised hopes. The high expectations were not met.
Favourite Quote: None
Final Analysis:
I maybe a bit biased by my own personal background, but better research was expected from a journalist.