I remember mentioning this book a year ago , but somehow never managed to finish it then. It could have been the seriousness of the subject, or the yearn to read a fiction, that kept me off it, back then. I had decided to bring it along with me, partly due to the small size of it (106 pages) and the consequent gain in space as opposed to carrying the Hitchhiker guide to the Galaxy. 😉 It was found deep under the pile of books I managed to “gather” over the last one year. And I decided to give it a try.
Indeed, it was a refreshing break from the American and Irish authors I had been reading ever since I got here. Finally I read a book full of complete sentences in English – funny, but true (And the non-indian authors call themselves the jargons of “english” literature !! he he). Sometimes, the overdose of native languages in the Irish and American books, kills the joy of reading the book. This is true with some of the Indian authors too, like the “God of small things”. Having said that I wouldn’t deny that fact that I enjoyed reading books such as, Angela’s Ashes, one of my first books written by an Irish author, for atleast the first half of it. But things got a little boring and monotonous by the time I reached its end and thats probably the reason I decided not to buy its “sequel” – T’is.
Something that got me glued to Countdown was the peculiar fast pace that it had. Filled with facts and reality, Amitav Ghosh talked about the aftermath of the nuclear tests in India, back in 1998. I know its outdated and hence irrelevant due to the stream of events that happened at the wake of the millennium, but the fact that everything written in the book was first-hand information still makes it a good read. What is more amazing was that he actually travelled to the place where the tests happened, talked to the people, and wrote the book as he travelled. By the time he got back, he had his book ready. But in the few months that he spent with the “topic”, he managed to talk to quite a few interesting people – such as George Fernandes, the then-defense minister of India, and that has made the book different. Perhaps it was his journalist’s approach towards writing which made it possible. 106 pages of pure facts and thoughts, would no way be achievable by any of the foreign writers, in my view, who tend to sway a lot in between, and that spoils the charm. Hence this surely is a book to read, if someday you would want to turn a little serious and try your hands on some serious matters… 🙂
More in stock, a couple of them I picked up from a sale in the book store at my college – August Frost by Monique Roffey and Tennants Rocks by Steve McGiffen, and the pile keeps growing…..
Idle thoughts 