Snakes and Ladders

By the world-famous novelist, this fascinating blend of personal memoir, historical anecdote and wry observation offers the indispensable guide and key to contemporary India in the fiftieth year of its independence. Entertaining, informative and passionate, there is no book like it. With a novelist's eye for detail and colour, Gita Mehta writes of the continent of contradictions that is host to one-sixth of the world's population. The world's largest democracy, it still practices the caste system. It's a burgeoning economic superpower, and one of the poorest nations on earth. It has the world's largest film industry, and the world's oldest religions. It is an ancient civilisation celebrating fifty years as a modern nation, entering a new civilisation many believe will belong to China and India. Now, as never before, the world wants to know what contemporary India is all about.