My plan to read in English for fun while on vacation is failing most abjectly. The book titled New Old World by the Indian journalist Pallavi Aiyar has proven to be excruciatingly stupid. The author begins by referring to herself without a shade of irony as “an Oxford-educated sophisticate” and makes sure that the readers are aware of how superior she feels to those Indians who did not go to Oxford.
Aiyar lived in Europe for several years and decided to write a book about the economic crisis. In her opinion, the reason for the crisis is that there isn’t enough capitalism in Europe. The spoiled, lazy, degenerate Europeans dare to expect holidays, weekends and pensions which signals the utter degeneration of the European civilization. According to Aiyar, the future belongs to the Indians and the Chinese who are prepared to work 24/7 365 days per year. Any attempt by any workers to gain any rights whatsoever provokes a paroxysm of rage in Aiyar.
Her greatest hatred is directed at Jews who, in Aiyar’s opinion, are extraordinarily lazy, even by European standards. Jews seethe with rage against Indians because they envy how hard-working Indians are. For Aiyar, anybody who says that there are more things to life than making money is a reprobate of the worst order. When a Jew she meets tells her that he values spending time with his family more than making money, she almost has a fainting fit. The only people more despicable than these lazy Jews are workers who strike. They are responsible for turning Europe socialist and causing its total degeneration.
All of this sounds like the ramblings of a diseased mind. Aiyar insists that she’s a super famous journalist in India but I have no idea how much she can be trusted. This is a very, very stupid person with narcissistic tendencies.
Clarissa's Blog 
Nope, never heard from her. (I’m from India.) Sounds like a typical Indian upper-caste Hindu.
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Oops, I meant ‘heard of her’, not ‘from her’.
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I found it hard to believe she’d really be as important in India as she thinks she is . In such a huge country, you need to be really good to stand out, I’d think.
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What made you pick her? Why not Amitav Ghosh or Rohinton Mistry?
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I get sent books for review a lot. The publishing house made this one sound attractive.
I love Ghosh and Mistry but I also like to discover new writers.
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The author begins by referring to herself without a shade of irony as “an Oxford-educated sophisticate” and makes sure that the readers are aware of how superior she feels to those Indians who did not go to Oxford.
She’s the child of an elite journalist. Had she been born a generation before she’d have been sent to a British run convent school for her primary schooling, in the tradition of elites who found schools set up for Indians by the British inadequate (they were really only meant to train petty clerks). She’s the kind of person who could pull a “do you know who I am” based on her famous relatives. She’s been told the family is a big deal in country, but that name doesn’t mean shit anywhere else. This makes for a very status insecure person. Daddy works for the Cato Institute, uncle was some minister in the last Indian government. She’s very much in the mode of people who absolutely look down on plebeians and I can guarantee that she has no love for these Indian and Chinese immigrants. She’s an expat; everyone else is a migrant.
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Ah! Her father works for the Cato institute! That explains the bizarre neoliberalism. I wish I knew all this before I agreed to review the book.
Thank you for finding all this out.
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One of her books is called ‘Punjabi Parmesan: Dispatches from a Europe in Crisis .” If you have to resort to this gimmickry to sell your book it cannot possibly contain any insight worth knowing.
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I thought the book was going to be about Indian immigrants in Europe. But for this author, Indian immigrants are subdivided into the Europe – educated sophisticates and “illiterate peasantry.”
All of the reviews on Amazon, though, are positive.
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The english-speaking pundit class in India is disgusting in its un-earned elitism. They are read and watched by less than 5% of the population but still dominate policy, just because they speak english and know which fork to use for the salad course.
I think these assholes have unwittingly contributed to a lot of moderate hindus turning right wing. Not too different from the culture wars over here. The way the coastal liberals sneer at the heartland red states it’s no wonder so many people here turn into reactionaries.
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Interesting perspective and as i am not an expert at all in indian culture sounds like a decent theory on their elitism. What is crazy though is just that “5%” of the population whom they have sway with is larger than the UK and every other european country sans germany. Not sure my complete point, but merely that in an impoverished country with a per capita gdp of 1/25th of developed europe, 5% elites can wield enormous financial and cultural power.
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