BUTTER CHICKEN IN LUDHIANA by Pankaj Mishra

Butter Chicken In Ludhiana: Travels In Small Town India is the first book by Pankaj Mishra. This travelogue captures the transitional phase of India in detail.

Summary Of The Book

Pankaj Mishra was living in Mashobra, Himachal Pradesh, in India and working on a novel when he was approached by Penguin India to write a travelogue. He took up the challenge, planned a book around the kind of Indian milieu he knew, and set out on a journey across the country to do his research for the project. Butter Chicken In Ludhiana: Travels In Small Town India is the outcome of that journey.

Mishra’s first book is a fascinating travelogue that takes the reader through the lanes of small town India. Published in 1995, Mishra shares first-hand experiences of his travels through these small Indian towns and describes how even these small towns are moving towards modernity. The author beautifully captures the cultural and social changes seen in these Indian towns in the context of globaliza

tion.Mishra, while traveling through the small Indian towns, figured out that they are shedding their half-apologetic, brash, clamorous, and sleepy air. He found that they are in the process of transition just like the metro cities of India and to emphasize his point, he portrayed various characters that he came across during the travels and shows how the transitional phase is clearly visible in India.

The book gains a colorful and bright form because of the variety of characters present in this travelogue. There is a convent-educated young girl belonging to Jhansi who aims to be a beauty queen one day. Naxalites of Bihar are included here who are trying to stimulate a revolution. A rich young man is captured talking casually of murdering the Muslims in Gujarat. And then there are these small shopkeepers who are planning their next vacation in London!

All this and more – unseen, unheard, and unexpected – is uncovered by Mishra with a touch of humor, biting wit, acute observation and irony. He beautifully presents a nation heading towards its rendezvous with modernity. Eighteen years from its first publication, it still remains one of the best contemporary classics ever written in Indian non-fiction! This revised edition of the book comes with an additional introduction by the author.

About Pankaj Mishra

Pankaj Mishra is a renowned Indian novelist and essayist.

Mishra has published various other books such as From The Ruins Of Empire, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World, Temptations Of The West: How To Be Modern In India, India In Mind, and The Romantics.

This noted Indian author was born in 1969 in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. He completed his graduation in Commerce from Allahabad University and later studied Masters in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. He writes political and literary essays that get published in various leading Indian, British, and American publications. In 2008, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has worked as visiting faculty at the Department of English of the University College London. At present he divides his time between India and London. From The Ruins Of Empire is on the shortlist for the Lionel Gelber Prize.