Seven Days Seven Books challenge #1

My father's English teacher, Prof Mahavir Jain invited me to be a part of the chain on Facebook. It was his choice of books and the words of his posts, which made me accept the task.

But, I made the mistake of browsing the trailing chain and their posts. It includes intellectual giants who have a connection to the city of Indore such as @satyanarayan Vyas, @ Dr. ajay sodani, @kalapini komkali, and others. Thus, my recommendations may seem out of place with the stellar literary works discussed before.

It's reassuring that books are there, alive, waiting to be discovered. I hope college youth stumbles upon them.

To post the first book, I recalled the time when I first purchased the books on my own. Armed with modest financial liberty through the new job in Pune, I ventured into the Crossword book store. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo still had nine years to be the famous Nobel laureates, they are now.

There was a luxury fashion designer studio on the ground floor, who supposedly had styled a couple of Bollywood stars. They also had a boutique gallery at the five star Westin hotel, Pune, where we happen to be for the company's annual conference. The enterprising young cousin of the designer chatted up with me and offered to tailor their signature cut trousers at an attractive price.

Thankfully, the fiction of a mythical superhero Kinjalk resurfaced with his waterboard abs and a lean athletic physique, to quell an impulsive garment purchase. I told him I would come later.

In the bookstore, I remember picking up books by Pavan K Verma, Sudhir Kakar, Madhav Godbole, Arvind Virmani, and this book in the pic.

In regards to the book, I believe, we should not glorify poverty. Neither should we 'legislate' it, which implies, often schemes and policies deployed in the name of the poor end up hurting them more. There are unseen effects of each and every small intervention. Banerjee and Duflo, through their extensive micro research, have been attempting to quantify in measurable terms, what works and what doesn't.

Arvind Virmani's book was a dense theoretical research work which I never read. But the book had some printing issues, which made me visit the store again to replace it.

The designer's cousin offered me yet another attractive price for their signature cut trousers.

But, this time, the mythical superhero in me, became a bit more empathetic and intellectually humble, after reading about 'hunger' and other poverty traps, in Banerjee's book. I politely refused.

I have never experienced 'hunger' either in 2011 or to this day. The readers of this post, the members of the great Indian middle class, would never experience it as well.

But, the great Indian middle class has long become intellectually malnourished.

Rejuvenate it, one book at a time.