yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Che in Paona Bazaar Tales of Exile and Belonging from India’s North-east Kishalay Bhattacharjee Macmillan 2013 Question Answers Does author know the place well? Yes. Is the book crisp and interesting? No. Is the book critical of actions in the state? Yes. Would I recommend the book? No. Books on similar lines   Highway39 – Journeys through a fractured land. Acrossthe chicken neck – Travels in Northeast India. Some (unconnected) snippets from the book "Ironically, HIV became a source of livelihood for several people in Manipur and the north-east. International funding was channeled into the drug money nexus and a percentage of that went directly to militant outfits. The failure of the government at every level has allowed the militia to gain control. But if the government has failed to provide, the militants have hardly done any better. Their stringent tax collection bleeds every family, rich or poor." ...

Highway 39 - Journeys Through a Fractured Land Sudeep Chakravarti 2012 Fourth Estate  Read a book that hit me hard - heart and mind - after long. It is raw and direct; neither has pretensions nor tries to be diplomatic.  A review (by me) may not have done justice to the sheer starkness of the issues the book hit me with. I share some 'unconnected snippets' that stayed with me long after I had read it; travelling in the very region it talks of.  Text in red is what the author has heard in conversations with locals while the blue colour brings out the author's voice.  A lot of money is also wasted in Nagaland because Nagaland isn’t permitted to do the planning, which has to be in conformity with what Delhi wants – and Nagaland can’t do the planning because Nagaland doesn’t have the resources. So it’s a waste for taxpayers in India. Their money is being wasted in Nagaland. And because we don’t pay tax here there is no transparency . . . th...