The desi mindset

The most interesting parts of the book constitute sections in which Mr Sardar articulates his love for his homeland, evenings spent gorging gol guppas and paan

Ways of Being Desi  

Ziauddin Sardar

Penguin 

229 pages; Rs 599

Ziauddin Sardar’s Ways of Being Desi is a curious mishmash of several genres: Personal memoir, film criticism, and armchair political commentary, none of which coheres with the other, giving the book an unbaked feel.

As a Pakistani settled in London, Mr Sardar presents his personal struggles in obtaining a visa or dealing with the bureaucracy as an outcome of a typical desi culture that spans the entire subcontinent. While this may be partly true, his tendency to present the Indo-Pak conflict as emerging from a similar fatalism can jar for its refusal to contend