Of personalitiesand anecdotes

India is a blur, but stray Indians stand out in sharp profile” — that about sums up the essence of The Nowhere Nation , a compilation of columns written by Dr Ashok Mitra for The Telegraph , Kolkata. A veteran Communist, economist, former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and ex-Finance Minister of West Bengal, Dr Mitra, with his biting style of writing, has bowled over many fans, irrespective of whether they agree with him or not.

Wide-ranging

The selected columns in this 224-page book cover a wide range of subjects. The book is divided into four parts. The first three have essays on the ‘absurdity' that is India, which ‘refuses to fit into a unifying whole'. Despite its so-called economic progress, India, feels Dr Mitra, continues to ‘simmer in its incongruities', as the classes, castes and communities live their parallel lives and sort out their own economics. Laced with wit, humour, angst and loads of information, the collection is peppered with anecdotes. But, the most interesting part of the book is the last one. “Men and Women” are sketches of interesting events or people encountered by Dr Mitra during his journey of life.

Dr Mitra speaks of ‘The Brothers Sahni' — Balraj and Bhisham – who always ‘tended to be hyphenated', in their lives, ideas and work, all of which were devoted to the lives of ordinary beings. Balraj, through theatre and acting and Bhisham through literature, lived for a cause.

On Sachin Chaudhuri

In his tribute to Sachin Chaudhuri, the founder editor of Economic and Political Weekly , Dr Mitra gives an insight into the persona as well as how the magazine started. Chaudhuri's younger brother visited the US as part of a semi-official trade delegation, led by an “economist of repute”. He came back disgusted with the “senior economist's inanities and marvelled at how reputations got built in India”. He prodded Chaudhuri, arranged for funds and the magazine was born on January 1, 1949. Such was the magazine's influence that Nehru was known to keep a copy of it on his desk, which set off a fashion among all politicians and social climbers. In fact, an RBI Governor had to put in papers after a tongue-lashing from EPW , writes Dr Mitra.

Another interesting one is on BJP leader J.P. Mathur's leap from being an ardent admirer of M.N. Roy, the Communist-turned Radical Humanist, to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Dr Mitra dwells on the “unusual phenomenon” of Roy, the “towering political philosopher” whose charm had attracted the most diverse kinds of people. There are other interesting anecdotes. Like the one about how Congress leader Tarakeshwari Sinha, a mix of ‘emancipation and feminine grace', quickly mended Communist leader E.M.S. Namboodiripad's faded sweater on a trip to Kashmir. Or the origin of the term ‘Coca-colonialism', popularised by Russy Karanjia, the proprietor-editor of the tabloid Blitz .

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