India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India, Kapur Akash

A New Yorker Contributors Pick 2012
A Newsweek Must Read on Modern India

For people who savored Katherine Boos Behind the Beautiful Forevers.--Evan Osnos, newyorker.com

A portrait of the incredible change and economic development of modern India, and of social and national transformation there told through individual lives

Raised in India, and educated in the U.S., Akash Kapur returned to India in 2003 to raise a family. What he found was an ancient country in transition. In search of the life that he and his wife want to lead, he meets an array of Indians who teach him much about the realities of this changed country: an old landowner sees his rural village destroyed by real estate developments, and crime and corruption breaking down the feudal authority; a 21-year-old single woman and a 35-year-old divorcee exploring the new cultural allowances for women; and a young gay man coming to terms with his sexual identity - something never allowed him a generation ago.