My village, my life : Nanpuri ; a portrait of an Indian village

"Go to the that is India, therein lives the soul of India," said Mahatma Gandhi many years ago. Even today, when all the world is changing -- the primitive state of Orissa in South India only more slowly than the rest -- that observation remains true. This charming book by a Western-educated Indian, an artist who lives in London part of the year but returns regularly to spend months in his home village of Nanpur, proves it. What Mohanti has written, and illustrated with his own delightful line drawings, is far more than a guidebook. He lets his villagers speak for themselves, but freely, as they never would for an outsider, so that the reader comes to know what they think about caste, and religion generally, and the all-pervasive concept of *karma*.... In these pages one meets many striking individuals. There is Kilas Jena, a friend since childhood who offers the author a glass of milk and is pleased that a high caste visitor to the house of a Harijan (untouchable) would drink it. There is the old woman known to the whole village as "the milkmaid aunt," and the widow with four sons, still young and beautiful, forgiven at last for having to go to Cuttack for an abortion, and Sarat, the 12-year-old servant boy, his family scattered when a cyclone destroyed their home. There are farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, the school inspector whose reports are included to show what education is in Nanpur. The reader becomes an intimate spectator of the festivals, rituals, daily routines, births, deaths, natural calamities, and natural beauties that continue to shape Nanpur even as the outside world begins to encroach on it, and so understands the author's conclusion that "if the village way of life is taken as the basis for India's development -- encouraging economic growth without destroying the beauty of life, creating a balance between human values and technology, India could become a source of inspiration to the world." When Alice met Nash, she fell head over heels. Two years later, she can't quite remember why. All they do is argue. In an attempt to save their relationship, they agree to leave England behind & emigrate to Australia. But when Alice finds out that Nash has been unfaithful, their plans are ruined & she decides to go to Australia alone.