The Other Country: Dispatches from Mofussil

The Other Country brings together a wide-ranging selection of essays by Mrinal Pande; one of India’s most respected journalists. Through chronicle; anecdote and hard-hitting reportage; Mrinal traces the many; ever-widening fault lines between Bharat and shining India; the small town and the metropolis.

Mrinal describes the Great Language Divide between Hindi and English; traces its origin; the role globalization has had in its spread; and the effect of this divide on contemporary literature and media. She vividly describes the anti-outsider movement in Mumbai and analyses the role that inequitable development; and the lack of opportunities in villages and small towns; has played in it. Mrinal tells the story of Prabha Devi of Tehri; Uttarakhand; who picked up scissors and comb to become village barber in the face of opposition and thus came to represent the enormous change in attitudes and stances that are now sweeping Indian society everywhere. And through a hilarious profile of the Mineral Water Baba of Faridabad; who can heal any ailment with a sealed bottle of mineral water; she analyses one of the big issues facing India’s villages and metropolises: its water-management systems.